
Class __Q1J13 
Book JIA 



Copyright N^ 



JO 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



I 




Fr. 



Strange Creatures 



IN NATURE'S SCHOOL 



LILIAN GASK 

AUTHOgj OF 

'through the gates of the moon' 
"the wonders of the zoo" etc. 



WITH SIXTEEN IIvIvUSTRATlONS 
BY 

DOROTHY HARDY 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWEIvL 8i COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 



0."' 



\:'^ 



lijiRARY of 00N'3HE6Sl 

SEP 9 > ^^^» 
«©*"' J!^';....T-T, 



COPYRIGHT, 1908 
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



The Contents of Chapters 

I How Phil ran away to the Woods 
II At Home with the Beavers 

III A Happy Time 

IV Some "Little Children'' 
V A Den in the Rocks 

VI Up in the Mountains 
VII On Greenland's Shores 
VIII "Lord of the Snows" 
IX A Fragrant Land 
X "Ships of the Desert" 
XI "All Glory Fades" 
XII An Unloved King 

XIII "A Friend in the Jungle" 

XIV " The White Queen " 255 
XV "The Other Side of the World" 276 

XVI Home Again 302 



>. 9 


23 


43 


65 


84 


102 


121 


144 


162 


179 


197 


215 


232 



List of Illustrations 





PAGE 


Phil crosses the Glaciers 


Co'\>er 


Strange Creatures 


Frontispiece 


"Did you make these?" 


28 


Felling the Trees 


46 


The Ondatras 


66 


A Singular Animal 


84 


" He was very angry " 


118 


"It is a Greenland Whale" 


158 


" Don't you know me ? " 


168 


Phil and Aleppo 


190 


"Who calls me?" 


206 


The Gorilla 


216 


"The wildest Antics" 


252 


The Leopard 


274 


Phil and the Kangaroo 


286 


"He started off with Phil" 


Z^\ 


vii 





/ 



IN NATURE'S SCHOOL 



Chap 




ter the First 

Ho'Vp Phil ran away to the Woods 

HE big red Orphanage against the 
hill looked very grim and desolate 
that autumn evening when Phil 
first saw it. He had come such a 
long way — from a sheltered val- 
ley where there were violets even in winter time, 
and the soft air only ruffled his curls and kissed 
him when he ran out to play. Here the wind 
rushed down from the heights above, almost 
throwing him off his feet as he left the shelter 
of the carrier's cart that had brought him from 
the station. It tossed his cap over the great iron 
gates that made him think of an ogre's castle. 

They opened slowly at the carrier's ring; as 
they clanged behind him Phil drew a deep breath, 
9 



In Nature s School 

and tried to remember all that " Mother " had told 
him about being "brave," before she went away. 
She was an angel now, they told him, and could 
not play with him any more. . . . He wished 
she were not an angel, for he wanted her "most 
dredf'ly," all day long. 

"Why, the child seems dazed," said someone, 
as he stumbled over the threshold of the Orphan- 
age. The matron, who was tall and dark, and 
had a tired face that had forgotten how to smile, 
took the queer-shaped bundle he had been clasp- 
ing out of his arms, and gave him a little shake. 

" We 're not going to bite you," she said sharply. 
"Hold up your head, and don't shuiffle your feet 
so. Your shoelace is undone, and your collar all to 
one side. I'm afraid you are a very untidy boy." 

Phil looked at her timidly, and in spite of her- 
self her stern mouth softened. The deep grey eyes 
that met her own so wistfully had violet shadows 
round them, and he seemed so little and young to 
be all alone among strangers. 



lO 



How Thil ran away 

"Can I take my brown bear to bed with me?'' 
he asked. "He's in my parcel. His fur is real. 
Mother gave him to me last Crissmus." 

The matron's glance grew hard again. 

"Seven years old, and want to take a 'brown 
bear' to bed with you!" she exclaimed. "You 
ridiculous boy! Don't let me hear such nonsense 
again." 

The poor brown bear was tossed aside, and Phil 
was told to make haste over the supper that was 
waiting for him on a tiny tray. The thick bread- 
and-butter almost choked him, but it was finished 
at last, and he was swept upstairs to the dormitory 
where he was to sleep. A row of small white beds 
stretched right along the wall, and from every bed 
a pair of eyes stared at him as he undressed. He 
was a long time, and the matron grew impatient. 

"Your fingers are thumbs, Phil Morris," she 
said, and the titter that ran round the room made 
Phil blush red with shame. "Fold up your clothes 
and say your prayers," she commanded next, and 



II 



In Nature s School 

Phil obeyed. A strangled sob caught in his throat 
as she bade him "good-night'* and took away the 
light. The other boys, who were already planning 
" surprises " for him in the morning, set up a jeer- 
ing chorus of "Cry, baby, cry," and a very hard 
pillow landed neatly on his head. It would have 
been followed by others but for the sound of foot- 
steps in the passage, which induced them to leave 
him in peace save for whispered threats. 

Phil slept but ill that night, and woke next morn- 
ing to a long day of misery. He was shy and 
frightened, and did not understand that the boys 
meant nothing by their teasing; he had never 
been teased at home, and did not know the mean- 
ing of half they said. When he flew into a passion 
and tried to fight them it only made things worse; 
"Cross cat" they called him then, and tied his 
hands behind him so that he was helpless to 
defend himself when they pinched him or pulled 
his hair. Little wonder that he was "stupid" 
when lessons began again. 



12 



How Phil ran away 

For how could he give his mind to " nine times 
nine" when Jack Thorp was sticking a pin into 
him under the desk, or think of the number of 
pence in thirteen shilHngs when the boy behind 
him had just dropped peas down his neck, inside 
the back of that stiffly starched collar which all 
the orphans wore? " Poor little chap, he'll bright- 
en up in a few days," thought the youngest mis- 
tress, who was lonely herself, and would have 
petted him had she dared. 

But Phil grew more stupid instead of brighter, 
and took refuge in obstinate silence when the 
matron tried to find out what was the matter 
with him. "He's the stupidest boy in the school," 
she said at last, when she passed through the class 
rooms and found him placarded as "Dunce" for 
the third time in one week. "The stupidest boy 
in the school," echoed the others; and "Stupid 
Phil" was his name henceforth. 

Phil was too miserable to care. It seemed to him 
all through the winter that no one spoke to him 
13 



In Nature s School 

except to tease or scold him; the small boys mocked 
at his babyish ways, and the elder ones bullied him 
as much as they dared, seizing their opportunities 
when they could. Jack Thorp — a thin pale boy 
with eyes that glittered like a snake's — was his 
chief tormentor; he was always thinking of fresh 
plots. 

"Let's have some fun out of that young Phil," 
he said one afternoon, and amidst delighted shouts 
Phil was hustled away to the big barn where they 
played when it was too wet to go outside. A piece 
of old sheeting was made into a rough bag, and 
in this Phil was suspended to the rafters by means 
of a long rope, and swung backward and forward 
until he w^as sick with terror. He was only released 
when the tea-bell rang, and that night he dreamt 
of yawning precipices and fearful chasms, into 
which he was dashed headlong. 

Jolly Dick Brownlow, rather ashamed of him- 
self for having joined in the fun, tried to make 
friends next day by means of a peace-offering of 

14 



How Phil ran away 

peppermint rock rather the worse for wear. But 
Phil put his hand to his head and shrank away as 
if he feared some treachery. He could not believe 
that anyone meant to be kind to him, and he only 
wanted to be let alone. 

"I believe you're half daft," cried Dick, who 
was angry at being repulsed; and one of the bigger 
boys, who happened to be passing, boxed Phil's 
ears " for looking such an owl," and made his head 
ache worse than ever. 

Phil's head was always aching now, and he 
longed for night to come, in spite of his terror of 
the darkness. The sunshine, which he had loved so, 
made him nearly as much afraid — he could not 
have told you why. When lessons were over he 
stole away and hid in a corner behind the wood- 
shed, where for a little while he was free from the 
other boys. 

It was here he kept his big glass marble — the 
only treasure he had left — and as he rolled it noise- 
lessly to and fro, dreading every moment lest some- 
15 



In Natures School 

one should come and take it away from him, he would 
wonder if any other boy had been "so mis'rubble" 
before. The tiny mouse he had tamed by bringing 
crumbs for her was his only comfort; she would 
run up the sleeve of his jacket and poke her cold 
little nose into hiscurled-up hand, and he loved her 
as fondly as he had loved his dear brown bear. 
"Brighteyes" he called her, and he was almost 
happy as she nestled against his cheek. 

Jack Thorp tracked him one day; he seized the 
marble, and crushed the mouse with his heavy foot. 
The little thing died with a piteous squeak, and 
Phil, with the sound of this ringing in his ears, 
dashed round the woodshed and through the play- 
ground in a passion of fear and grief. His flight 
was so sudden that no one followed him for a mo- 
ment; Jack had caught his jacket on a nail in the 
woodshed, and could not free himself without 
tearing it, which would have meant a forfeited 
holiday. Before they saw what he was after, Phil 

had skirted the yard, and dived into the long passage 

i6 



How Phil ran away 

which led to the back door. He was out of this in 
a moment, and skimming down the open road as 
if his feet had wings. 

Past the post office and the church he ran; the 
row of cottages they called "the village" were 
soon left far behind. He felt as if he could run for 
ever, and did not stop even when by turning back he 
could no longer see the Orphanage in the distance. 

It was springtime now, and the hedges were 
green with buds. The ditch into which Phil stum- 
bled, when at last his knees gave under him, was 
very deep, but he fell on a patch of grass and 
was not hurt. Some sweet, pale primroses that had 
strayed from a neighbouring field looked up at him 
with starlike eyes as he panted for breath, and a 
breeze as soft as those in his old home rustled the 
hawthorn tree above. " Lie still and rest," it seemed 
to say; and Phil lay still, while footsteps passed and 
repassed on the road, and excited voices called his 
name. 



He maun be hidin' i' the village," he heard the 



17 



In Nature s School 

gardener from the Orphanage cry. Then all was 
silent again, and the sweet, pale primroses smiled at 
him reassuringly. 

"You're all right now," they murmured ; and they 
looked as if they knew. 

When the shadows were very long on the white 
road Phil crept out of the friendly ditch and made 
his way to the woods, where he knew he should 
find shelter. Perhaps the robins would cover him 
over with leaves, as they did the Babes in the Wood. 
He would like that, he thought. 

" Dear little Phil," cooed a ring-dove softly, as she 
watched him through the mist of fairy green that 
hid her nest. Pink-tipped anemones spread them- 
selves in his pathway, and the blue sky looked down 
at him kindly through the branches overhead. 

"I will stay here always," he cried; and made 
himself a chain of primroses to show that he 
belonged to the wood. 

The light in the sky grew fainter, and the snow- 
white cloud ships that sailed across it turned into 

i8 



How Phil ran away 

rosy pink and then to palest violet. A baby rabbit 
scrambled across his feet and made for the bank 
close by; the ring-doves settled themselves to rest, 
and ceased to coo, for they knew it would soon be 
dark. 

Phil began to feel lonely again — so lonely that 
the tears he thought had been driven away for ever 
(for when you are most unhappy you cannot cry) 
rushed down his small white face, like raindrops in 
a hurry to reach the ground. 

"O mother, I wish you'd come," he sobbed. 
"I want you so — O mother, mother. . ." 

A nightingale from the depths of the coppice 
burst into song, and the aspens shook their branches 
and sighed for sympathy. 

"Mother, mother," he cried again; then his 
weeping ceased; for kindly arms had gathered him 
into a wide lap, and the sweetest eyes that he had 
ever seen were looking into his own. 

" I am Nature, the Mother of All," a soft voice 
said, "and you are my little child. . . .Why are 

19 B2 



In Nature s School 

you so unhappy, Phil? I meant you to play like 
the lambs in the meadows, and be as glad as they." 

Then Philip told her all his troubles, nestling 
against her arm as a small bird nestles under its 
mother's wing. "I'm the stupidest boy in the 
school," he finished, "and nobody loves me now." 

Nature gathered him to her yet more closely, 
and though she was silent for awhile, Phil was 
quite sure she would not send him back to the 
Orphanage, or let him be " mis'rubble " any more. 

A flood of moonlight made the woods bright as 
day; each blade of grass was a shining spear, and 
the dew on the leaves glittered like diamond drops 
upon a sheet of silver. 

"You shall come to my school," she said, "and 
live with my other children, the creatures of the 
woods and streams, of ice and snow and burning 
deserts. And they shall make you welcome, and 
be your friends, until such time as you are ready to 
return to the world of men." 

Her voice, which had been low and gentle at 

20 



How Phil ran away 

first, swelled into the sound of a great river flowing 
down to the sea, and ended on a long full note 
that was like a call, and more beautiful to listen 
to than any other sound . . . Swiftly and silently, 
as if they had journeyed far on the wings of the 
wind, strange creatures came from the tangle of 
undergrowth under the beech trees, and made 
obeisance to the Mother of All. A giant gorilla 
bent his hairy head with the gesture of a courtier 
who bows only to Royalty; a splendid lion with 
eyes of flaming amber and the sands of the desert 
still on his feet stood near a polar bear, the " Lord 
of the Snows,'' while a stately elephant waved his 
curling trunk over some curious creatures whose 
pictures Phil remembered he had seen. They were 
in the book of Natural History his mother had often 
read to him in the long winter evenings at home. 
Phil was not frightened, but full of wonder and 
delight. Nature had taken his hand in hers, and 
now she drew him forward into the centre of the 
strange group. 

21 



In Nature s School 

"This child of mine shall live in your midst," 
she said, "and none of you shall harm him. He 
shall learn from you courage and foresight, and 
the secret of happy work and glad obedience; that 
you have your troubles as well as he, and bear 
them bravely. And his fellows shall know through 
him that you, even as they, are my own children, 
and very dear to me." 

A deep murmur, like the beating of waves 
against the rocks at break of day, filled the aisles 
of the wood as Nature ceased to speak. 

" It is well," her creatures murmured, " the boy 
shall learn our secrets, and none of us shall harm 
him. He shall wander at will amongst the forests 
and by the sea; for we shall remember that he too is 
thy child." And swiftly and silently as they had 
come, they vanished into the dark again. 

Then Nature laid two soft kisses on Phil's eyes, 
and sang to him softly. Her song seemed to come 
from a long way off; soon the night wind took 
him tenderly from her arms and bore him far away. 



22 




Chapter the Second 

At Home with the Beavers 
^HIL woke to find himself beside a 
river, under the shade of the luxu- 
riant trees which grew to its very- 
edge. The air was as warm as sum- 
mer, and the murmur of the big 
brown velvet bee that hovered over a purple flower 
made him think of the garden at home. A tiny 
humming-bird, gleaming against the willows like 
a spot of fire, flashed quickly past him, and lingered 
for a moment on a swaying branch; she had travel- 
led nearly four thousand miles on those small wings 
of hers to reach her summer quarters, and even 
now was not at her journey's end. 

Phil turned his head to look at her, and as he 
did so he found to his great joy that the stiffs white 
23 



In Nature s School 

collar which the village boys had called his "pud- 
den plate" had disappeared. So, too, had the drab 
serge suit and the clumsy hob-nailed boots that 
had hurt him so. Instead, he wore a single garment 
of some soft brown, the colour of earth, girdled by 
a broad green belt that felt like velvet. His feet 
were bare, and as he buried them in the thick grass 
on which he lay, he sighed with pleasure. 

"Good morning,'' remarked someone in rather 
hoarse tones close at his elbow, and one of the 
quaint animals he had seen the night before shuffled 
awkwardly towards him with what was evidently 
intended for a pleasant smile. " Mother Beaver," 
Nature had called her, he remembered, and he had 
a dim idea that she had offered to take him under 
her care until he knew his way about the forests. 
He sat up now so that he might see her better, for 
in the daylight she looked stranger still. Her body, 
nearly three feet long, was covered with glossy 
hair; her tail was paddle-shaped and smooth, while 

her strong white tusks would have given her quite 

24 



With the Beavers 

a fierce expression but for her twinkling eyes. 
These were very bright and most inquisitive, as if 
she found him quite as curious as he did her. 

"Good morning," she repeated with friendly 
emphasis, as Phil tried in vain to think of some- 
thing to say." Where are your manners, young man ? 
Haven 't you learnt yet that it isn 't polite to stare?" 

" I beg your pardon," said Phil, smiling shyly 
at her. "I never knew that animals could speak 
until last night, and its rather startling at first, you 
know. Do you mind telling me where I am?" 

"In North America, on the banks of one of its 
swiftest rivers," she returned, proudly. " You are 
coming to school with me, I hear. I hope you are 
quick and industrious — we have too many idlers 
already, and there's any amount of work to be 
done before the autumn." 

Phil thought of his name at the Orphanage, 
and felt a sudden qualm of fear. It was gone in a 
moment; for Mother Beaver's voice, if gruff, was 
kind, and he liked the way her eyes twinkled. 
25 



In Nature's School 

"I '11 do my best," he said. "Mother usen't to 
call me stupid, but everyone does now. And I 
s'pose I am," he sighed. 

Mrs Beaver gave an odd little snort that showed 
the big teeth on either side of her powerful jaw. 

"Those who think others stupid are generally 
stupid themselves," she said, flapping her scale- 
covered tail as she moved towards the water. " I 
daresay you're as bright as any, if the truth were 
told. Can you swim?" 

Phil nodded joyfully. That was one thing, any- 
how, that he could do. Even Jack Thorp, who had 
toppled him over into the big swimming-bath 
"for fun," had owned that he swam "like a fish"; 
an old sailor had taught him during a long happy 
summer he had spent by the sea, and had been 
quite proud of his pupil. 

"Not that it would matter if you had never 
learnt," said Mother Beaver, struck by a sudden 
thought, "for Nature has made you an exception 
to all her rules. What is an exception? (I said 'ex- 

26 



With the Beavers 

ception,' not 'essepshun,' please!). Well, you must 

wait until Father Beaver comes if you want it 

properly explained, but it means that while you 

are Nature's guest you will be able to do all those 

things that a small boy wouldn't be able to do in 

the usual way; such as breathe under water, for 

instance, as you will in a moment, when you come 

to my winter home. You will change your size, 

too, without knowing anything about it, just 

when and where it is most convenient, so that you 

can sit in nests, or run down burrows, as easily as 

the creatures to which they belong. And you '11 

never feel hungry, unless there is something near 

that you can eat, or thirsty, unless you are within 

easy distance of a stream. In short, my dear. Nature 

has been particularly kind to you for this one year; 

after that you'll be just an ordinary boy again." 

Phil was rather bewildered; it sounded much 

too wonderful to be true, but Mother Beaver 

seemed quite in earnest. 

"Are you ready?" she said. ''Then follow me. 
27 



In Nature's School 

We 're going to my winter lodge, where 'my young 
ones are still waiting for me. Their father and I 
only left it this morning to look round, for spring 
comes suddenly here in the north, and a day or 
two ago it was quite cold. The flowers are in bloom, 
the bees say, before they have time to notice their 
buds, and the trees spread out their leaves in a single 
night. The winter has only just gone." 

Phil followed her to the water's edge through 
clumps of rushes, and saw before him a cluster of 
dome-shaped houses, like giant thimbles, in the 
centre of the stream. Many were some feet above 
the surface of the water; they were covered with 
a smooth coating of hard mud, and so far as he 
could see they had no entrance. 

" Did you make those ? " he asked, as she led him 
on to the dam, so that he might get a better view 
of them. He was amazed that such an insignificant 
creature as the beaver could build such fortresses. 

"Of course we did," she answered in matter- 

of-fa6t tones. "Yes — they took a long time, but we 

28 




" Did you make these ? " 



I, 



With the Beavers 

worked together, and worked with a will. The walls 
you'll notice, are more than six feet thick. They 
have to be very strong," she added mysteriously. 
Phil wanted to ask her why, but she seemed so trou- 
bled that he said " How do you get in ? " instead. 

"Take a header and see," she told him, splash- 
ing from the dam and diving straight down, with 
Phil behind her, until they reached the deep pro- 
jection, or "angle" as it is called, beneath which 
lay the entrance to her own particular home. It was 
very near the bed of the river, where the frost 
would not be likely to reach even in bitter weather. 

"Here we are !" she cried, shaking the water 
off her tail as she scrambled through. Phil noticed 
that she was as agile in the water as she was clumsy 
on land, and that two toes on each foot were webbed. 

Inside the winter house were three young 
beavers, all very wide awake and covered with 
brown and glossy fur. Their three little beds were 
nicely arranged along the side of the wall, much as 
those in the Orphanage dormitory, while two vacant 
29 



In Nature s School 

ones, somewhat larger, and belonging to Father 
and Mother Beaver, were on the other side. The 
centre of the chamber was left free to move about 
in, and was so beautifully clean that Phil was sure 
Mother Beaver would be as particular about 
muddy boots as the matron herself. He was very 
glad he had left his behind him — bare feet were 
much more comfortable. 

"Yes, my children," Mother Beaver was saying, 
as she patted each affeftionately, "the time has 
come for us to go to the woods. Your father is ex- 
ploring now, so that he may know where you can 
find the juiciest roots, and how far it is safe to ven- 
ture. He will meet us before dusk." 

She busied herself in smoothing their fur, while 
they stared hard at Phil. Under their shining chest- 
nut hair was a thick soft coat of greyish brown, 
and Mother Beaver seemed very anxious that this 
should lie quite flat. 

"They're very thin," she said, regretfully, "but 
then it has been a long winter, and our larder is 

30 



With the Beavers 

nearly empty. We live on bark entirely when we 
are down here," she explained to Phil, as she made 
sure that all was straight before she left. " We find 
it very nourishing and tasty, though you might 
think it dry. Before the frosts come we lop off 
branches of willows and other trees, and sink them 
under layers of stones close to our houses. Last fall we 
laid in a larger supply than usual, for we knew the 
spring would be late in coming; but our neighbours 
had such enormous appetites that it soon went. Our 
neighbours? Yes — they live on the other side of our 
lodge; but we don't visit — it isn't our way.*' 

With a last look round she left the winter house, 
and though Phil swam more quickly than he had 
ever done before, she and her young ones were first 
on the river bank. 

"But we're good friends," she went on (Phil 
shook himself as she had done, and noticed with 
pleasure that his brown coat was dry in a moment) , 
"and always work together in building or repair- 
ing our dams and houses. That's why they call 
31 



In Nature s School 

us "Social" Beavers. Some cousins of ours (there 
are not many of them, I beheve) Hve quite alone." 

The young beavers had a fine time of it that 
bright spring day. Phil found them most amusing 
playfellows, for when they had satisfied their 
hunger on succulent roots and tender shoots they 
were quite ready for any game that he suggested. 
They were all in the highest spirits when Father 
Beaver came on the scene. 

He was thinner than any of them, and much 
more serious. Phil was inclined to be frightened 
of him at first, but soon found him as kindly as the 
rest. He smoothed Phil's hair for him as if he were 
a son of his own, and asked to look at his teeth. 

"H'm," he remarked thoughtfully. "They 
won't be much use for felling trees, but I daresay 
you can help us in other ways. We must set to 
work in the early summer," he continued, turning 
to Mother Beaver, "for there is a lot of rebuilding 
to be done this fall." 

"Rebuilding?" echoed Phil. He had loved his 

32 



With the Beavers 

bricks, and to make castles in the sand; building 
those dome-shaped houses must be great fun. 

" Certainly/' replied Father Beaver. "Our dam 
must be enlarged, and a new lodge put up. We 
shall want all the help we can get. Later on, when 
we have got up our strength, we must begin to 
cut those saplings." 

Phil was feeling rather tired, so, while the young 
beavers started another game, he sat with their 
parents, trying to understand what they meant 
when they spoke of "IT." 

"I feel sure IT is somewhere about," said 
Father Beaver moodily. " I came across IT'S traces 
two or three miles away." 

Mother Beaver sighed. "There is no use in bor- 
rowing trouble," she said. "We must just keep a 
sharp look-out, and get our work done quickly. I'm 
glad now that we made those extra holes in the bank, 
though it did seem rather unnecessary at the time." 

"Those holes, my son," said Father Beaver, in 
answer to Phil's inquiry, "lead to the deep tunnels 
33 c 



In Nature's School 

in which we take refuge when we are pursued by 
our enemies. There we are comparatively safe, but 
in the open country or in the woods, owing to our 
clumsy movements on land, we are at their mercy.'* 

His voice was gloomy, and it made Phil sad to 
think that such gentle animals as beavers had 
enemies. 

" If they catch you, do they swing you up high, 
and make you all sick and giddy? " he asked, with 
a vivid recollection of the terrors of the barn. 

"Worse," said the Beaver, shortly. "The 
hunters trap and kill us for our valuable fur, and 
IT — the Wolverene — aftually eats us! This is why 
we go to so much trouble to make our houses 
secure, so that when the frost has hardened the 
thick layer of mud which we place each fall over 
the thatch of stones and driftwood, neither teeth 
nor claws can penetrate the hard surface." 

Mother Beaver had shuffled off to her young 
ones, who were making up for the short commons 
of the winter by eating all the green shoots that 

34 



With the Beavers 

came in their way. Their father, settHng himself 
comfortably in the shelter of a low bush, invited 
Phil to sit beside him and have a chat. 

"You want to learn our ways," he said, looking 
at him indulgently. "They are easy to understand, 
for though we are more skilled in building, per- 
haps, than other creatures, it is chiefly for our 
industry that we are noted. Nature has taught us 
to think ahead and provide for the future. I sup- 
pose you know what 'thinking ahead' means?" 

" Not ezza£tly," said Phil honestly, with a long- 
ing look at the young beavers. The smallest of 
them appeared to have rolled himself into a round 
ball, and Phil couldn't help thinking what first- 
rate bats the others' broad tails would make. 

The Beaver drew back his wandering attention 
with a light flap of his tail. 

"One thing at a time," he counselled. "If I 

take the trouble to talk to you, the least you can 

do is to listen. . . . About looking ahead. If you had 

'looked ahead' and learnt your geography the 
35 C2 



In Nature's School 

other day, instead of making paper boats in pre- 
paration time, you would have known that a con- 
tinent wasn't 'apiece of land surrounded by water,' 
and they wouldn't have called you " 

"Don't say it!" Phil entreated, and Father 
Beaver laughed and changed the subjeft. 

"The Social Beavers to which we belong," he 
said, "live in small colonies, and work together for 
the general good. A certain number of us, whom 
hunters call' the Idlers,' refuse to help at all, and are 
satisfied to live in tunnels instead of houses. These 
are usually sorry for their idleness when it is too late, 
for they are often captured by fur hunters, who 
know where to look for them, and easily dig them 
out. That is, if IT does not find them first." 

"IT?" questioned Phil, snuggling closer to 
Father Beaver and speaking in an awed whisper. 

"The Wolverene," he amended. "My wife can- 
not bear the sound of his name when she is weak 
from fasting, so we call him ' IT ' at this time of the 
year. He carried off our eldest daughter last sum- 

36 ; 



With the Beavers 

mer. She was proud and wilful, and would not 
stay by her mother's side. , . . She had a lovely 
tail." 

"Don't you think we should be settling in for 
the night?" asked Mother Beaver, bustling back 
to them with a delicate green bough, from which 
she had stripped the leaves, as a tit-bit for Phil. She 
was surprised to hear that he was not hungry, until 
he reminded her how early that afternoon a dapper 
bee in a velvet coat had invited him to a feast of 
honey. The Queen of the Fairies might have envied 
him that meal, so exquisite were the flower-cups in 
which he found it. 

"Of course, if you prefer honey to fresh bark," 
she said disappointedly. To please her Phil nibbled 
one end of the bough, and found it very bitter. 
He was thankful when her thoughts were dis- 
tracted to her young ones, whose coats had to be 
nicely smoothed before they went to bed. Ere long 
they were all curled up under the thorny branches 
of a wild brier. Phil crept in between them, and was 
37 



In Nature s School 

soon asleep, while the two old beavers watched in 
turn to see that all was well. 

The next few weeks were a delightful holiday 
for Phil. Day after day he roamed the woods with 
the gentle beavers, making friends with the bees 
and squirrels, and finding out their haunts. Some- 
times he caught brief glimpses of other creatures, 
who glanced at him shyly and scampered off. He 
learnt to keep a sharp look out for the dreaded 
Wolverene, and was so curious to see him that he 
almost hoped that he might come. Nature had 
promised that nothing should harm him, and he 
would proteft the beavers. 

Father Beaver devoted many hours to his young 
visitor. He told him much about woodcraft, and 
how Nature protected some of her weakest crea- 
tures against their foes by giving them the shape 
and colour of their surroundings. The little brown 
twig on the bough before them, he pointed out, 
was in reality a caterpillar which birds would have 
devoured long since if he had attracted their atten- 

38 



With the Beavers 

tion. The small dead leaf among the vines 
was a gorgeous butterfly when he unfolded his 
wings, the under side of which were a dingy- 
brown. ^ 

"You will find this wherever you go," said 
Father Beaver, " Nature always protects her own." 

"How does she protect you and me?" Phil 
asked him curiously, only half understanding. 

"By giving us our'wits," said the Beaver simply. 
" If you don't use them it is not her fault. When you 
grow up strong, and wise, and fearless, you will 
be able to protect others as well as yourself. As for 
us, it was she who first taught us how to build. 
But for her we should be at the mercy of the 
Wolverene all through the winter, when he is 
fierce with hunger, and very strong. There is the 
Wild Cat, too. Sometimes we hear her tearing at 
our roof, and snarling with rage. It is a horrible 
sound to listen to on a still dark night." 

" Why didn't you stay in England ? There are 
no wild cats or wolverenes in the woods at home — 
39 



In Nature s School 

only birds and rabbits, and harmless creatures such 
as those." 

Father Beaver gnawed a strip ofbarkfrom a young 
birch tree before he answered. "The Wolverene is 
not our worst enemy," he said slowly. " Beavers 
were driven from your shores by Man. Yes — " as 
Phil gave a little start of surprise — "we used to 
build in many of your streams and rivers; in Wales 
we were well known, and I have heard that in the 
time of Hoel-dda, the great Welsh lawgiver, one 
hundred and twenty pence — then a very large sum — 
was offered for each Beaver's skin. You see we were 
much thought of even in those days, though I must 
say I wish it had been for something else than for our 
fur. We are still to be found along some of the large 
rivers of Europe, such as the Rhone and Danube, and 
in many lakes; but the Rhone Beavers are solitary 
animals and do not build houses, dwelling instead 
in burrows, which go far down into the earth." 

" Do those hunters you spoke of often come 

after you. Father Beaver?" 

40 



With the Beavers 

"Yes, my son," said the Beaver sorrowfully, 
"for our fur is in greater demand than ever. In 
the winter, which is the 'hunting season,' they 
do their best to force our houses with heavy 
weapons, and if we take to the water beneath the 
ice, and swim to our tunnels in the river side, 
they sound the ice above the banks with an iron 
chisel, which tells their practised ears the exact 
spot where our holes are to be found. Then they 
dig us out— and that is the end of us." 

"Fm very sorry, dear Beaver," Phil whispered, 
stroking the shining fur that brought such trouble 
on its possessors. "Til tell them all when I leave 
the woods how cruel it is to hunt you, and p'raps 
they won't any more." 

Father Beaver smiled mournfully. "There's al- 
ways the Wolverene," he said. "His other name 
is the Glutton. It just exactly suits him, for he 
can eat more at a sitting than any other creature 
of his size. How does he look ? Something like a 
small bear, with thick coarse hair of blackish 

4-1 



In Nature s School 

brown. Until he shows his double row of glisten- 
ing teeth, you would never guess how ferocious 
he could be. His muzzle, as far as his eyebrows, 
and his large paws (they are so large that his trail is 
sometimes mistaken for that of a bear) are the colour 
of ebony. His horrible claws are as white as milk, 
and the natives use them for necklaces. I wish they 
had them all," he finished with a deep sigh. " I can't 
help thinking he'll pounce on us some day soon." 

But nothing was seen of the Wolverene as time 
went on, and Father Beaver became quite gay. His 
coat filled out, and grew more glossy than ever; he 
would be "a portly old gentleman" before long. 
Mother Beaver told him ; and at this he began to 
talk of tree-felling, for he did not like the idea of 
losing his figure. 

"There is a time for work and a time for play," 
said Mother Beaver, looking smilingly at her 
young ones. "The time for work has not come 
yet, though it will soon be here. Let them play in 
the sunshine yet awhile." 

42 



Chapter the Third 




A Happy- Time 
HIL'S limbs were strong and 
sturdy now, and his cheeks rosy 
instead of pale. The long glad 
days in the open air had made 
him bold and fearless; he had 
forgotten how to be afraid, and even when the 
moon was hidden, and the little twinkling stars 
were keeping her company behind the clouds, 
night had no terrors for him. If he woke, it was 
just to take a long breath of the scented darkness, 
and go to sleep again. 

"I am so glad you found me," he would whis- 
per to Nature, whom he knew was very near; 
and his last thought in the evening was of the 
joys of another day. He quenched his thirst at 
43 



In Natures School 

the rippling streams that trickled through the 
woods, and no other water had ever tasted so 
sweet to him; the bees gave him honey, and the 
squirrels shared their nuts, while if he wanted 
more, Mother Beaver was always ready to find 
him succulent roots, and the birds to show him 
which wild berries he might eat with safety. 

Father Beaver had left his family to its own 
devices for some time; he had been exploring the 
winding river, and diving under waterfalls in 
sheer delight at his own strength. He was full 
grown now, and fond as he was of his little wife 
and children, the roaming instinft was strong. The 
morning he rejoined them he was in great form. 

" What have you been doing with yourself } " 
inquired Mother Beaver, eyeing him suspiciously, 
when she had told him all her news. The glossy 
fur at the back of his neck bore marks of recent 
bites, and there was an ugly tear in one of his ears. 

Father Beaver looked at the sky. 

"There is a lovely maple tree not far from here," 

44 



A Happy Time 

he said, as if he had not heard her question. "I 
girdled it on my way back just now, and you'll 
find plenty of syrup oozing from it if you go there 
to-morrow." 

The young beavers sniffed eagerly, but Mother 
Beaver was not to be put off. 

"You have met the Otter," she cried, her eyes 
growing very big, "and you've been fighting." 

Father Beaver chuckled. "Last summer," he 
said, turning to Phil, "I was only two years old, 
and that Otter punished me so severely that but 
for Mother Beaver there, who came to my rescue 
in the nick of time, I should have been done 
for. But now — well, he will never trouble me 
again!" 

Phil looked at him with a new reverence. The 
Otter, he knew, was a fierce foe to beavers, with 
whom he disputed the lordship of the river; that 
Father Beaver should have conquered him single 
handed filled him with awe. 

" Let us hear all about it ! " cried Mother Beaver, 
45 



In Nature s School 

coming quite close to him. But he brushed her 
aside good-humouredly, and spoke of other things. 

" The night wind says that the frosts will come 
early this fall," he remarked, "and we are well 
into the summer now. There is a fine plantation 
of willows on the river-bank, only waiting for us 
to fell them. We will get to work at once. I shall 
be right down glad to begin." 

"So shall we all," said Mother Beaver heartily. 
" Holiday-making is well enough for a while, but if 
we did not use our teeth on something harder than 
soft bark and lily roots, they would soon grow dull." 

"Yours are as bright as the gleam of the moon 
on the water, my love," said Father Beaver with 
a glance of admiration; and Mother Beaver gave 
him an affectionate push, which was as near to a 
hug as she could go. 

When they reached the group of trees that 

Father Beaver had planned to attack first, other 

beavers belonging to the colony were already at 

work. These nodded kindly to Phil, but were too 

46 




Felling the Trees 



} 



A Happy Time 

much absorbed in what they were at to take much 
notice of him. Mother Beaver was deputed to see 
what he could do, while the young beavers were 
given a first lesson by their proud father. 

Choosing a stout young sapling very close to the 
bank, Mother Beaver gnawed round it with her 
sharp, chisel-like teeth, taking care to bite most 
deeply on the side nearest the water, so that it 
might fall towards the stream and be quickly 
floated. In a very few moments it toppled over, cut 
clean through, and Mother Beaver looked round 
for another. 

"We'll try that big one over there," she cried, 
with an approving glance at her young ones, who 
were hard at work on some slender willows. Phil 
hesitated and flushed, for he did not know how to 
begin. Mother Beaver touched him pityingly with 
her small forepaw. 

" I forgot your teeth were so small and weak, 
my dear. It's not your fault, so you need not be 
ashamed. When I have felled the tree, you shall 
47 



In Nature s School 

drag it down to the bank. That will be a great 
help, and leave us free for felling." 

The tree took much longer to fell than the 
sapling had done, for the trunk was nearly as 
thick as a man's body. Phil was immensely inte- 
rested to see how Mother Beaver set about her 
task; he had guessed from the first that she was 
remarkably clever, but now he was quite sure of it. 

First of all she made a deep cut through the 
bark which circled the trunk as far from the ground 
as she could conveniently reach. Some three or 
four inches lower she cut a second ring, and then, 
slowly and surely, dug out the wood from between, 
splinter by splinter, with those sharp teeth of hers. 

The day wore on, and still she worked. Father 

Beaver offered to help her; each time he came she 

sent him back. It was growing dusk; Phil saw that 

now the trunk of the tree between the cuts went 

in like a lady's waist. Each time that Mother 

Beaver drew out a splinter this "waist" became 

more slender still; a very little further, and the 

48 



A Happy Time 

tree would have been cut right through, but 
Mother Beaver knew^ w^hen to stop. 

"Come away," she cried quickly to Phil; "at 
the next gust of wind that tree will fall, and only 
foolish creatures run knowingly into danger. I 
should be crushed beneath it if I drew out another 
splinter. Some of our family have* already met their 
deaths that way; they were too impulsive, and did 
not stop to think." 

The night wind came singing through the 
forest, and the branches of the big tree quivered; 
with a low groan it crashed to earth, and Phil 
found that it took all his new strength to drag 
the heavy mass down to the bank. 

"I s'pose you'll all take a rest now," he said 
persuasively, for he was longing to hear about 
Father Beaver's encounter with the otter, and 
thought that he would not mind trying some of 
that maple syrup himself. But the beavers were 
only just getting into their work, as they told him 
gaily, though he, of course, might take a nap. 
49 D 



In Nature s School 

They were still at it when he awoke next 
morning. 

"We shall go on until not a tree on this spot 
is left standing," Mother Beaver declared, cheer- 
fully; and he quite believed her. 

By the afternoon his arms began to ache, and 
the beavers had found him so useful that one of 
the elders of the colony had remarked that he 
should have nothing to say against it if he wished 
to stay with them altogether. Phil thought this 
very kind of him; but, much as he liked the bea- 
vers, there were many other animals that he 
w^anted to meet. Perhaps Mother Beaver guessed 
something of this, for she told him pleasantly to 
go off to the woods. 

"You'll work all the better to-morrow," she 
said; and Father Beaver flapped his tail by way of 
dismissal. 

As neither she nor their father would hear of 
the young beavers taking a holiday too, Phil 
wandered off by himself into the depths of the 

50 



A Happy Time 

forest, where the beautiful golden sunlight, which 
had much ado to force its way through the thick 
leaves, was making long ladders on the moss. Some 
small red berries, quite sweet and tasting like 
strawberry cream, drew him further and further 
in; a squirrel threw him a nut and turned aside, as 
if too lazy to play, and a drowsy bee mistook his 
yellow head for honey, much to her own dismay. 
Phil felt uncommonly drowsy himself, in spite 
of his long night's rest, and was thinking of 
taking forty winks when a gentle rustle in the 
branches made him look up quickly. It was the 
Wolverene. 

For a moment Phil thought that he must be mis- 
taken; surely that benign looking animal, so very 
like his own brown bear, could not be the beaver's 
voracious enemy? He was patting the boughs as a 
playful kitten might have done, and rolling him- 
self over with surprising ease. His small brown eyes 
gazed at Phil good-naturedly, as if to read his 
thoughts. 

51 D2 



In Nature s School 

"I don't look such a desperate chara6ter, do I?'' 
he asked complacently. " My wife — I must really 
introduce you to her- — thinks I am quite a fine 
fellow, and my two young sons adore me. I'll take 
you home to supper, and you shall see them. They 
are barely ten days old." 

Phil was very curious to see the young wolve- 
renes, but somehow he did not think it would 
be fair to the beavers to be on such friendly 
terms v/ith an animal that ate them. So he 
thanked him most politely and said he must be 
going on. 

The Wolverene left off his playful patting of 
the branches and showed his teeth in an ugly 
smile. 

"All right," he said resentfully. "I know what 
that m^eans, of course. The beavers have been set- 
ting you against me, just as I thought. They had 
better look out, for I have only been waiting until 
they grew a bit fatter. That "Father Beaver" of 
yours will make me a remarkably good supper. 

52 



A Happy Time 

Give him my love if you happen to see him." 

He leapt as he spoke from the upper branch 
of one tree to the lower branch of another, 
a distance of some twenty feet, and disappeared. 
A low chuckle came from the ground close 
by, and Phil was delighted to see a small brown 
rabbit, exaftly like those that had played in 
the woods at home, sitting up on his hind legs. 
He was shaking with laughter, and his comical 
little nose was wrinkled up until it nearly met his 
eyes. 

"Good for you!" he cried. "That Wolverene is 
a terror — I know him well. He would question 
and cross-question you about the beavers until you 
were nearly addled, and then he would persuade 
them that you had been telling tales. Mischievous 
creatures such as he are best left alone, even if you 
are sure they cannot harm you. He is as much 
hated by sable and marten hunters as he is by all 
of us, for he has such a wonderful sense of smell 
that he scents out the stores of provisions they 



In Nature s School 

hide in case of need, and wastes all that he does 
not eat. He makes their traps useless, too — but 
that isn't to save the sables, but because he wants 
the bait. The only creatures that can get the better 
of him are the Grizzlies; when they come down 
from the mountains they make a meal of him." 

Not until the rabbit had talked himself out of 
breath had Phil a chance of asking him the 
shortest way back to the river. 

"Won't you let us give you a shake-down for 
the night?" he said by way of answer. "Our bur- 
row is large enough to take you in, and I could tell 
you many stories of these woods." 

"I'll come some othertime,if you don't mind," 
said Phil. "I should like to find the beavers now, 
and put them on their guard." 

"Quite so !" agreed the rabbit. "I shouldn't be 
surprised if that old rascal paid them a visit to-night. 
He'll guess their whereabouts from the trees they 
have cut down, and will try to punish you through 
them." 

54 



A Happy Time 

Phil hurried back as quickly as his legs could 
carry him, not even stopping to look at the splen- 
did birds that fluttered amongst the vines. A gor- 
geous butterfly, spotted with crimson and purple, 
offered his services as a guide, but it v^as almost 
dusk before Phil reached the little colony of beavers. 

They v^ere still working away, as busily 
as ever. Although he had only been gone a 
few hours, they had done wonders; more than 
half of the group of trees they had chosen were 
already down, for they had "worked together, and 
worked with a will," as Mother Beaver had said. 

Phil's news was received with much concern, and 
Father Beaver hastily summoned a conference. All 
beavers under a year old were at once dismissed 
from work, and commanded to wait by the en- 
trances to the tunnels beneath the banks, so that 
in case of surprise they might be under cover, and 
Phil was posted as sentinel while the elder beavers 
finished felling the trees they had already begun. 
This done, they decided to leave them where they 



In Nature s School 

were for the present, and to make for the other 
side of the river. 

Father Beaver was the last to cross; as he dived 
from the bank there was a stealthy tread among 
the rushes, and the gleaming eyes of the Wolverene 
followed him through the water. But for Phil's 
warning there would have been at least one beaver 
less that night. 

It was some days before the busy little animals 
began their work again, for they knew that the 
Wolverene might still be on the watch for them, 
and have crossed the river himself. So they "lay 
very low," as Father Beaver put it, keeping to the 
thick undergrowth of the brushwood, or playing 
hide-and-seek with their young ones in the deeply 
tunnelled banks. Phil soon found that though each 
tunnel had a separate entrance, they all led to the 
same spot, within easy reach of the winter houses. 
He was never tired of admiring these, but Father 
Beaver brushed his praise aside, so far as they were 
concerned. 



A Happy Time 

'' Come and look at our dam," he said. " It's a very- 
fine one, though perhaps I ought not to say so." 
The dam stretched quite two-thirds across the 
river, and w^as curved, somev^hat in the shape of a 
half crescent. 

" That is because the current here is very rapid." 
explained the beaver, "and an arch is stronger 
than a straight line, as your ow^n bridge builders 
know^. If the current w^ere gentle, our dam would 
be straight, and this would give us much less 
trouble. But a rapid current is very useful, for if 
we have to go any distance for our building mate- 
rials, it brings them quickly down to us, without 
any special effort on our part." 

" So that was why we carried all the trees that 
you had felled quite close to the river bank?" 

"Exactly. When we are ready to build we shall 
push all those into the current, and some of us 
will be waiting by our dam to stop them as they 
float past. See how the branches of the willow are 
sprouting!" 
57 



In Nature s School 

They had reached the dam by this time; it 
seemed to Phil Hke a thick hedgerow on a solid 
bank, for not only were the willow branches in 
full leaf, but the poplars and birches, used to repair 
it from time to time, had taken root also. 

" If the snow on the mountains melts too rapidly, 
and flows down to the river in torrents, the 
water behind our dam is still quite calm, and our 
houses, built in its shelter, are undisturbed. We 
must always have a deep body of water in which 
to build our lodges; so when we take a fancy to 
some small river or creek in which the water is 
likely to be drained off at any time. Nature teaches 
us to build our dam right across the river, in order 
that we may prevent this." 

"How do you start building the dam?" asked 
Phil. 

"If we are going to build a straight one, we 
guide two of the largest trees that we have felled to 
the spot we have chosen, placing them side by side, 
and leaving a space between. If some of their 

58 



A Happy Time 

branches make them lie too high for our purpose, 
we nibble these off, working under water quite 
easily, and coming up every few minutes to breathe. 
(No — not more often than that,I assure you. Nature 
has arranged this for us, so that we can more easily 
escape our enemies.) These branches we place ver- 
tically in front of the big logs, adding other branches 
and small trees in the same way. Most of our wood, 
however, we lay crosswise, and almost horizontally. 
The spaces in between are filled with mud and 
stones, which we mix together to form a kind of 
cement. We bring the mud in tiny handfuls, hold- 
ing it under our throats by means of our forepaws, 
and often making as many as a thousand journeys 
backward and forward from the bank before we 
have enough. We always build by night, youknow, 
and for a long time no man could say just how we 
worked. Perhaps the night wind told in the end." 

" How do you manage when you want your dam 
to be curved, as this one is ? " asked Phil. 

"Then we use smaller logs in the same way, 
59 



In Nature s School 

shaping the dam as we work. You would not 
believe the strength of ours, unless you saw how it 
stood the shock of the floating ice as it came pound- 
ing against it at the end of the winter. Our houses 
we build in much the same way, but more roughly." 

" I think they're wonderful," said Phil respect- 
fully, and Father Beaver, trying not to look too 
pleased, moved his flat tail and cried "Tut, tut ! " 

"The night wind told me a wonderful story the 
other day — that some eight or nine years ago an 
Englishman took some Social Beavers to a beautiful 
valley in his park in England, setting them free 
by the banks of a stream, where the trees grew 
thickly down to the very edge of the water, just j 
as they do here. These beavers, she says, set to work 
at once to build a dam across the stream, making 
a deep wide pool six times as large as the original 
brook, and six times as deep at the lower end." 

"I wonder if it is true?" mused Phil. 

"I believe anything that the night wind tells 
me," said Father Beaver, thoughtfully. " She talks 

60 



A Happy Time 

to us often when the sun goes down; sometimes 
she is merry, and sometimes sad, but always what 
she says is true. She brings the scent of the hunters 
in time to warn us that they are on our track; she 
knows when the frosts are coming, and when it 
is safe for us to leave our winter houses and take 
to the woods. For Nature often sends us messages 
through her. Of what are you thinking? Eh?" 

Phil's thoughts had been wandering, and the 
Beaver's sharp eyes had found him out. 

"I was thinking about that Otter," he said, 
truthfully. " I want to know how an Otter looks." 

"Oh! That just depends where you happen to 

be when you see him. If you are on land, he seems 

to be a slender animal some three feet or so in 

length, covered with close brown fur, and with 

a broad and flattened head, and a thick, tapering 

tail; if you see him in the water, diving after the 

fish on which he feeds, he looks like a flash of 

lightning! For the water clings to the long shining 

hairs which lie over his close coat, and he glides 
6i 



In Nature s School 

through the stream so quickly that your eye can 
scarcely follow him. He is a brave creature; he 
will fight to the death when he is attacked — and 
a brave enemy should be honoured, even in death." 

" How did you kill him, Father Beaver ? Do 
tell me — I have been wanting to know all day." 

"7 didn't kill him at all, my son," Father 
Beaver replied serenely. " He had fastened on me 
wdth his sharp teeth before I knew that he was 
near, and I was doing my best to get free of him 
when another Otter, a rival of his, seized him 
from behind and dragged him off to fight him on 
his own account. I retired to a safe distance and 
watched the battle. It lasted until one was killed 
outright and the other mortally wounded. They 
will never trouble our waters more." 

"Oh," said Phil. He was rather disappointed 

that the Beaver had not killed his enemy in single 

combat ; Father Beaver seemed quite satisfied, 

however. 

"There are so many of her creatures that Na- 

62 



A Happy Time 

ture wishes you to make friends with," he went 
on as he took another admiring look at his dam, 
" that I don't suppose you will be allowed to stay 
with us much longer. But before you leave this 
part of the country, you must certainly pay a visit 
to the Ondatras, or Musk Rats. We don't care for 
them as neighbours, for they are apt to make holes 
in our dams, but they are quite well-meaning and 
intelligent. They build much as we do, though 
their work is not so lasting. And because they are 
gentle and very timid, Nature made them, you'll 
see, the colour of mud, so that when they are curled 
up and at rest on the bank of a stream, they are 
often mistaken for small mounds of earth. There 
is a colony of Ondatras in a shallow creek some 
miles away. You will see them at their best at 
night, for they are sleepy during the day time." 

All the time he had been speaking. Father 
Beaver had been looking up and down the banks 
for traces of the Wolverene. The birds called 
"Good-night" to each other from the glowing 
63 



In Nature s School 

maples; the crimson lights of the sunset fell over 
the river, and the new moon hung her shining 
crescent on the top of a giant fir. 

"I think all's safe," said Father Beaver; and 
the work of tree-felling began again. 



4 



64 




Chapter the Fourth 

Some ^^ Little Children'^ 

HAT very same evening Phil made 
his v^ay to the home of the Musk 
Rats, or Ondatras. As he neared the 
creek the Beaver had pointed out 
to him, he sav^ a number of animals 
the size of big rats, v^ith tails that v^ere almost as 
long as their bodies, swimming hither and thither, 
and leaving trails of silver behind them. Others 
stood motionless upon the bank; so still v^ere they 
that it was only their sparkling eyes that showed 
they were alive, until, with a sudden plunge, they 
dived after their companions, striking their long 
tails smartly on the water as the beavers did, and 
reappearing from beneath the broad green leaves 
of the water lilies on the other side. 



In Nature s School 

Phil watched them silently for a time. They 
were like school boys, he thought, and he won- 
dered what game they were playing. Sometimes 
a musk rat would lie quite flat on the surface of 
the stream, as if he were a floating leaf from 
some giant tree; in a moment he would be all 
life again, and, darting after his playmates, would 
race them round the creek. 

"I think it would be very nice to be a musk 
rat," said Phil aloud, moving a little nearer the 
bank. In a second the creek was empty — not a 
single ondatra was to be seen. Phil felt so disap- 
pointed that he was almost inclined to cry. 

The water still rippled in the moonlight; all 
was still. Presently a small brown head peeped 
out of a hole in the bank. Phil did not stir; he 
was afraid to breathe lest he might frighten the 
little thing away. 

"Who is it?" cried a timid voice. 

"A friend!" said Phil. And more small heads 

peeped at him questioningly. 

66 




The Ondatras 



Some Little Children 

" Why, it 's that child of Nature's," said a musk 
rat suddenly; "the lonesome boy who had no one 
to care for him. "And a slender little creature with a 
small head and silken fur hurried towards him, 
full of apologies for not having recognised him 
before. 

"I am the Lady Ondatra," she cried, ''and you 
are indeed most welcome. Will you join in our 
sports? The water is very smooth to-night, and 
as warm as milk." 

Phil was nothing loth. He was the same size 
now as they were, and could dive with the best 
of them; it was delightful to float on the surface 
of the water and watch the clouds chasing each 
other over the deep blue vault of the sky. The 
cry of the night owl came dreamily from the 
woods; a prowling Puma roared hungrily to his 
mate, but the pond of the musk rats was a happy 
playground, and they the merriest of comrades. 

The hours flew by and the moonlight faded; 
the tips of the far off mountains were tinged 

67 E2 



In Nature s School 

with pink, and a bird in the distance raised his 
morning song. 

" It is time to go! " cried the Lady Ondatra to 
Phil; "come with me; I will show you my nest.'' 

Phil found that it was exadlly as the beaver had 
told him, and that he could follow the Lady On- 
datra quite easily through the winding tunnels, or 
branched canals, which had their entrances under 
the water. The one through which the Ondatra 
led him sloped upward gradually for quite a long 
distance; it ended in a wide chamber in which 
there were three other openings. The centre of 
it was nearly filled by a luxurious couch of water- 
lily leaves and sedges, where, curled up snugly and 
fast asleep, four baby ondatras lay with their faces 
hidden. They were like little beavers, Phil thought, 
and just about the size of full-grown mice. 

Their mother spoke in a hushed whisper lest 
she should disturb them. 

"I'm glad that you think we are pleasant crea- 
tures," she said. " We do harm to no one, and live on 

^8 



Some Little Children 

roots and leaves, perfectly happy if we are but let 
alone. We dread the fall — it is then that the hun- 
ters most often come, though sometimes they visit 
us in the spring. Ah me!" 

"Are they after you, too?" cried Phil compas- 
sionately. "You are so small that I shouldn't 
have thought your skins would be much good to 
them!" 

"Our fur, which is used in making hats, is highly 
esteemed," said the Lady Ondatra stiffly, "and our 
flesh, though musky, of such excellent flavour that 
the natives prefer us to wild duck." 

Phil guessed that she was hurt, and did his best 
to soothe her by admiring her babies. No mother 
could have resisted this. 

"Tell me all about the hunters — that is, if you 
don't mind," he said with diffidence, when they 
had quite made friends. 

The Lady Ondatra did not mind. She seemed to 
take a fearful joy in describing the perils she had 
escaped, though she knew quite well that when 

69 



In Nature's School 

the summer was over she might have to go through 
them all again. 

"Sometimes thev take us in traps," she said, 
"which thev arrange so that in our struggles for 
freedom we are jerked into the water and drowned, 
tor we cannot live without air for any length of 
time. The nature of our abode depends entirely 
upon the soil, and we do not always build. The 
Ondatras who make their homes altogether in 
burrows, thev capture bv stopping up all their air 
holes except one, and seizing them when thev 
come up to breathe. When we live in marshy 
places we build winter houses, just as the beavers 
do, though ours are not so strong, and less than 
three feet high above the surface of the swamp. 
When the ice freezes over them we make breathing 
holes in it, and protect these from the frost by a 
covering of mud. If the frost is so hard that our holes 
cannot be kept open, we die from suffocation." 

"But vou are safe from the hunters in your 

winter houses? " 

70 



Some Little Children 

The slender tail of the Lady Ondatra quivered 
as she drew closer to her babies. 

"There were five of us last fall," she said, "and 
we lived in a snug little house on the marsh. Our 
beds were beautiful — so soft and dry — and we had 
all the food that we should need. We had settled 
ourselves for a happy winter when a long cruel 
spear crashed through our roof and wounded three 
of us. The walls of our house were rudely torn 
away, and I and my mate only escaped because 
the hunter lost his balance and stumbled into the 
mud. Fortunately, our summer tunnels were not 
yet blocked with snow and so cut off from us, or 
even then we could not have escaped him." 

The baby Ondatras stirred uneasily in their sleep 
as if they were dreaming of dangers to come, and 
their mother patted them gently. With a whisper 
of thanks Phil said good-bye, and crept through 
the branching passages up to the earth again. 

Early as it was, the squirrels were already chat- 
tering to themselves as they scampered amongst 
71 



In Nature s School 

the trees. A little black fellow, with a bushy tail 
that spread itself out like a beautiful feathery fan 
for some six or eight inches at the tip, dropped 
lightly down in front of Phil. His ebony fur was as 
fine as thistle-down; Phil was not surprised to hear 
that his name was " Feathertail." 

"When are you coming to pay us a visit?" the 
little creature asked in jealous tones. " I have a fair, 
green nest in the fork of a top-most branch, and a 
lovely wife and three young babies, with skins as 
soft as silk." 

"I couldn't climb high enough!" Phil said 
regretfully. He had been "a regular duffer" at 
climbing at school, and the bigger boys had often 
dragged him up a fairly tall tree and left him there, 
clinging helplessly to the boughs, until they were 
tired of jeering at him. He shivered now as he 
thought of it; then squared his shoulders. His grey 
eyes flashed; he would not say " I can't" again. 

"I'll do it somehow!" he cried. The Black 

Squirrel ran off to give notice of his visit, and 

72 



Some Little Children 

Phil fixed his whole mind upon climbing that 
tree. 

"Press your knees against it, and use your hands/' 
whispered a voice in his ear. "That's right — now 
swing yourself round and take hold of the branch 
above you. So! You're getting on famously. Well 
done!" 

Phil knew that it was Nature who spoke to him, 
and he felt so proud of her praises that he almost 
forgot the squirrels. But three small heads, and a 
larger one, which belonged to a very proud mother, 
peeped over the nest to welcome him, and Feather- 
tail waited beside it. Phil laughed to think of his 
doubts as to whether the branch would bear him; 
slender as it was it barely stirred beneath his weight. 

The baby squirrels were charming little things; 
he sat in the nest with them, and laughed with 
glee as the wind rocked it to and fro, while Feather- 
tail told him how it was only this spring that he 
had come to these woods. 



"Their mother and I used to live in those heio-hts 



73 



In Nature s School 

you see in the distance there, under that rosy cloud. 
But the Grey Squirrels came, and drove us out — 
we couldn't stand the noise they made, and their 
rough ways frightened us. So Nature told us about 
this wood, and here we feel quite safe." 

" So do I," said Phil, stroking the prettiest baby 
squirrel gently. "What a jolly little chap this is. 
I wish I could take him home with me when I go 
back to England — I s'pose I'll have to go back 
some day," he finished with a sigh. 

The mother squirrel fluffed out her fur in wild 
alarm, and Feathertail darted forward ready to 
protect his family. 

"How could you suggest such a thing? " he asked 
indignantly, when Phil had managed to convince 
him that he meant no harm. " It is bad enough for 
an ordinary squirrel to be taken away from his for- 
est home and shut in a small cramped prison, but 
for us it means almost certain death, for we cannot 
stand captivity. ... A cousin of mine — 'twas the 
wind that told me — was caught by some travellers 

74 



Some Little Children 

and put in a tiny cage where she had scarcely room 
to turn. Of course she died, and they ' couldn't think 
why' ! I wonder if they knew how cruel they were ?" 

His bright little eyes were clouded with grief, 
and it was not until he had raced to the top of a 
neighbouring tree and back again that he felt better. 
Even then he looked uneasy when Phil fondled his 
babies; as to the mother squirrel, since that unfor- 
tunate remark of his, she had been clearly anxious 
to get rid of him. 

"We will go to the stream," said Feathertail, 
when he saw that her anxiety was getting too much 
for her. Phil longed to ask if the baby squirrels 
might come as well, but wisely refrained. He was 
sorry to leave that cosy nest on the waving branch; 
next time he came, he thought, he would be care- 
ful what he said. 

The stream to which Feathertail led him was 
bordered by drooping ferns; it was so clear that it 
might have been a lady's mirror but for the tiny 
wavelets rippling from side to side. 
75 



In Nature s School 

" Don't you hear it singing as it trickles over the 
stone?" asked Feathertail. "It is the same song that 
the wind sings,only more low and sweet Listen!" 

Phil could hear nothing but the rustling of the 
leaves about them, and the soft flow of the sparkling 
water; but perhaps his ears were not so keen. 

The Black Squirrel sat on the edge of the bank, 
and dipping his nose well under the surface of the 
stream, drank deeply and long. Then he placed 
himself jauntily on his hind feet, and washed his 
face with his forepaws, splashing them in the 
stream from time to time as if he thoroughly 
enjoyed it. 

" We are the only Black Squirrels in the world," 
he said with melancholy pleasure. "We find our 
homes in the woods and heights of North America, 
and even here we are becoming more rare. For 
the Red and Grey Squirrels drive us from our 
haunts, and hunters trap us for our fur." 

A cry from the bushes — the indignant protest 
of a Scarlet Tanager, that had been robbed by his 

76 



Some Little Children 

mate of a fine fat insecS — made Feathertail dart 
away. Phil waited in vain for his return. 

" He has gone for good — that was quite enough 
to frighten him," remarked a Httle clucking voice 
that reminded Phil of the cry of a fluffy yellow 
chicken; and the daintiest little squirrel he had yet 
seen whisked out from the brushwood and sat 
beside him. It was the Hackee, or Chipping 
Squirrel, and many a time Phil had seen him run- 
ning in and out among the bushes; for the Hackee 
lives on the ground. 

Now that he saw him closely, Phil noticed the 
beauty of the seven stripes that ran across his 
brownish-grey and orange fur. Five of these were 
jet-black, and two were white, tinged with flecks 
of yellow; the fur on his throat and underneath 
him was the colour of pure snow, and his forehead 
flamed with brilliant orange. He seemed on the 
best of terms with himself and all the world, 
and his small black eyes were full of fun and 
humour. 
77 



In Nature s School 

"Did Feathertail offer you any breakfast ? " he 
asked, hopping close to Phil. 

''No." 

"I thought he wouldn't. He doesn't keep such 
stores as we do. Come with me." 

His movements were so rapid that Phil almost 
lost sight of him before he gained the stump of the 
hollow tree which was, so to speak, his hall. Out 
of this hollow led several tunhels, down one of 
which the Hackee disappeared. Phil ran after him 
as quickly as he could, and with all his haste, 
admired the way in which his host had formed his 
winding gallery. Up and down it led them, through 
twists and turns that would have puzzled most 
squirrels, let alone a boy, until they reached a large 
snug nest made of dry moss and grasses. It was 
empty, but still quite warm. 

"Those young ones of mine ought to have been 
up and out more than an hour ago, lazy little 
creatures!" chuckled the Hackee. "I tell their 
mother that if they are not more independent 

78 



Some Little Children 

before the new brood comes, she will have her 
hands full." 

Diving into another gallery, the Hackee came 
to a full stop. Phil's eyes were scarcely yet used 
to "seeing in the dark," but he saw at length that 
they were standing before a heap of nuts, with 
grain in plenty, and many acorns; the Hackee had 
more than provided for his wants. 

" We stay in these cosy burrows all through the 
winter snows," he said, "and only come out when 
the warm sunshine tells us that spring is here. To 
do this in comfort we work very hard in the fall 
to fill our storehouses with nuts and grain. This 
is only one of them — we have others in different 
places. Help yourself, and take as many nuts as you 
like," he went on hospitably. "Here — sit in this 
corner, and I will crack them for you." 

But Phil preferred to crack his own nuts; his 
teeth, though the beavers scorned them, were 
strong enough for this, he thought. They tasted 
like beaked hazel nuts, but where were the 
79 



In Nature s School 

beaks ? The Hackee laughed at his bewilder- 
ment. 

"We carry home nuts in our cheek pouches, 
four at a time (Why four ? Because five would be 
one too many, of course!), and we are much too 
sensible, as you might have guessed, to hurt our- 
selves by those sharp points. We bite them off | 
tidily before we push them into our mouths with 
our forepaws, as you will see if you watch us one 
day. It is fine to be a ground squirrel, and much 
safer than living in trees. Down here we are safe 
from all our enemies — or almost all," he added in a 
whisper. Then his expression changed, and his sharp 
ears pointed forward. 

"Hark!" he cried. 

'' Chip-mun^-chip-munk!''' T\it call was echoed 
through the galleries, and the Hackee's merry eyes 
were full of anger. \ 

"How dare he come here!" he cried, "and 

calling me in that familiar way too ! I '11 let him 

know who is master in this burrow! " 

80 



Some Little Children 

The second Hackee came joyously down the 
passage, heedless of offence. 

"Hallo," he cried, looking at Phil, "whom 
have we got here ? That Nature child ? To be 

1)5 


But Hackee the First interrupted him. 

"You have no business to come down here un- 
invited," he said, fiercely. "I would have you 
know— ^ — " 

Before he could finish, the other had flown at 
him. Their slender tails — Phil was not at all aston- 
ished when he heard afterwards that these some- 
times were snapped across in battle — whirled round 
like Catherine wheels ; two small furry bodies darted 
backward and forward; gleaming white teeth tried 
to take savage bites at soft pink noses. It was 
a wonder that the Hackees found room to turn as 
they did in that narrow tunnel. 

Phil tried in vain to come between them; 
they pushed him aside as if he were a bundle of 
grass, and in a second were at each other again. 
8i F 



In Nature s School 

He was afraid that, like the otters, they would 
fight to the death. 

But the pugnacious Hackees' rage was spent as 
suddenly as it had arisen. While Phil imagined 
they were only gathering their breath for another 
attack, they had both calmed down. 

"I've just been showing him round," said Hackee 
the First, twisting his tail in Phil's dire6lion. 

"Seems a nice boy," said Hackee the Second, 
feeling Phil's nose anxiously. " I thought I might 
have bitten it off just now when you got in my 
way," he said to Phil with much relief, finding it 
was still there. " Never come between fighting 
creatures, boy — it's a thankless task." 

Phil was quite sure that if he had been his usual 

size the Hackee would not have chucked him 

under the chin in that off-hand way, but he did 

not mind a bit. They were all three sitting before 

the storehouse, the best of friends, when both 

chipping squirrels sprang to their feet in terrified 

accord, standing for a second as if paralysed with 

82 



Some Little Children 

fear. For their keen sense of smell had told 
them of the approach of the one enemy they 
dreaded — the soft-footed, silent Stoat. 

Now came the use of those twists and turns of 
the winding passages. Swift as were the movements 
of the Stoat, he was on strange ground, while the 
Hackees knew every inch of it. His savage eyes 
looked like vengeful green fire to Phil, who waited 
for him in the centre of the gallery, hoping to bar 
his way. But the Stoat passed by him as if he were 
not there, and Phil listened with dread for the 
strangled cry which would mean that one of the 
Hackees had met his doom. None came; the Stoat 
had missed a turn in the winding tunnel, and the 
flying Hackees reached the hollow tree in safety. 
Once there, it was easy to dive down another bur- 
row and so baffle pursuit, but they were two very 
frightened squirrels when at last they stopped 
for breath. 



83 



F2 



Chapter the Fifth 




A Den in the Rocks 
HE sun, like some mighty King 
in a fairy tale with a great gold 
crown, and flowing robes of pearl 
and rose colour, had long since 
risen above the mountain. A mist 
of heat hung over the valley, and the giant fir 
trees at the edge of the wood were like sentinels 
guarding a wonderland. 

Down one of these, from which the bark had 
been completely stripped, came a singular animal 
with rough hair, and a short tail thickly set with 
quills. On seeing Phil, who had just left the home 
of the Squirrels, he rapped his tail smartly against 
a tree, almost dropping to the ground with fright. 
He recovered his balance just in time. 

84 




A singular Animal 



A Den in the Rocks 

"I suppose you are that child of Nature's," he 
remarked, gruffly. "I am the Urson, the only 
porcupine you'll find in North America, and I 
eat bark because I like it. Why do I take it from 
the top of the tree first? Because I prefer to work 
my way down. Why haven't I more quills if I 
am a porcupine? If you use your eyes, you'll see 
that I am studded all over with them, though 
my hair is so thick and long that they are not 
particularly noticeable. How fond you are of 
questions! Is there anything more you want to 
know? I'm just going home." 

"Couldn't you stay a little while, Mr Urson? 
You look so — so interesting, and I should like to 
talk to you!" 

The Urson showed his orange teeth in a sudden 
smile, and rubbed himself against Phil's arm as a 
friendly cat might have done. In spite of his crop 
of thick dark hair he was rather prickly, and 
Phil hoped that he would not want to sit on his 
lap. 

85 



In Nature s School 

"You're a bright little fellow," declared the 
Urson ; " I can't think why they called you 
'stupid.' Did you put out your quills and fight 
them?" 

" No,-o," Phil acknowledged reluctantly. "I-I- 
ran away." 

"Bad thing to do as a rule, though it hasn't 
turned out badly for you. When you go back, you 
must stand up to the boys if they tease you, and 
show them you have some spirit. Don't get in a 
temper, you know; but hold your own." 

Phil thought it was all very well for a porcu- 
pine full of quills to talk so bravely; for a small 
boy it was quite different. 

"Not at all," said the Urson, as if he had 
spoken his thoughts aloud. "They would leave 
you alone if you did not let them see you were 
so frightened. I am nervous myself, but I can keep 
a dog twice my own size at bay; if he comes too 
near I turn my back and give him a taste of my 
tail, and a mouthful of quills into the bargain." 

86 



A Den in the Rocks 

"Ah, but I haven't a tail, you see!" said Phil, 
and the Urson remarked that as that was the case 
he must learn to do without. Yawning at intervals, 
he told Phil how his great-great-grandfather ("a 
most distinguished inhabitant of this forest") had 
defended himself single-handed against the attack 
of an American Indian, coming off victorious in 
the fight, though leaving half his tail quills in the 
native's hands. 

"And he used them to decorate his squaw's 
front hair!" said the Urson with disgust. The 
very thought of it made him so angry that he 
erected all his own quills until he was as com- 
pletely protected as a knight in armour. 

In a moment or two his anger subsided. " Would 
you like to see my home?" he asked, mindful of 
the fact that he, in common with all the other 
creatures of the wood, had been told by Nature 
to be kind to Phil. He did not seem too pleased 
when Phil said "Yes," for he was a most devoted 
father, and had heard before now of a human being 

87 



In Nature s School 

taking a liking to a young porcupine, and carrying 
him off to tame and bring up as his own. He 
grunted to himself under his breath as he went 
along, but Phil thought this was just his way. 

The Urson's den was some distance off, in the 
midst of a cluster of rocks that had fallen to the val- 
ley from the mountain side. To reach it they had 
to cross the wood, and the Urson's progress was 
almost a royal one, for all the small wood things 
movedawayathisapproach.Hewalkeddeliberately, 
as if the woods belonged to him, and made no effort 
to subdue the rustling of his quills through the long 
grass. A hungry-looking weasel with malicious eyes 
glared at him furtively, but came no nearer; he had 
"tried conclusions" with an Urson once, and would 
not venture again. A sharp-nosed fox licked his 
longing lips and turned his head aside, while further 
on a greyish-brown animal huddled up on the lower 
branch of a spreading tree stretched out a savage 
paw, and drew it back. Those slender quills were 

painful things when they pierced the tender places 

88 



A Den in the Rocks 

between one's claws, and no delicious morsel behind 
the spears could make up for a swollen mouth that 
would be sore and smarting for days — so sore that 
its owner, unable to eat, might die from sheer star- 
vation. So the Porcupine passed under the tree in 
safety, dawdling on purpose as he caught sight of 
the crouching figure above him. 

"That's 'Peeshoo' — the Lynx," he laughed as 
they moved on. She would make a grab at me if 
she dared, but she's afraid. You would not think to 
look at her, would you, that a blow from a stick 
would kill her at once? Yet so it is. That is because 
she is a coward at heart, for all her fierceness." 

A snarl of rage from " Peeshoo " told Phil that 
she had overheard. 

"She always snarls when I move out of her 

reach, though she dare not touch me," said the 

Urson, making himself into a bristling ball of 

defiance as he heard the sound. " I do that to 

remind her what she would have to face," he 

explained to Phil. "There's nothing like letting 
89 



In Nature s School 

one's enemies see that one is ready for them. 
' Don't attack, but always be ready to defend your- 
self; this is my motto, and a good one it is." 

They were out of the wood soon and in the 
valley. The entrance that led to the Urson's den 
was so narrow that he had to make his quills lie 
very flat in order to creep through, but Phil, as it 
always happened, was just the right size. He was 
speedily introduced to Mrs Urson and to "my 
small son." 

The baby porcupine was in reality anything but 
"small"; Phil found out afterwards that of all 
wild things he was the largest in proportion to the 
size of his parents. A big furry bundle of silky 
brown, his quills not yet having pushed their way 
through his thick hair, Phil thought him very 
comfortable to nurse, and Mrs Urson was as pleased 
with his admiration of her offspring as the Lady 
Ondatra had been. His father, however, was in- 
clined to be testy. 

" He's just an ordinary young porcupine," he 

90 



A Den in the Rocks 

said; "no more, no less. Don't put nonsense into 
his head, please — his mother is ready enough to 
do that." 

Feeling rather uncomfortable on her account, 
Phil turned to Mrs Porcupine, who did not seem 
in the least disturbed by her lord's reproaches. 

" He wants a little change of air, poor dear," she 
said to Phil in a confidential whisper. "I expe6t 
he'll be leaving me soon — I know the signs.". 

The Urson caught her whisper, and his sharp 
little face grew sad. 

"We've been very good friends," he said, look- 
ing round at her wistfully, "and its a nice child; 
but there's something beyond these woods which 
is calling — calling. I don't think that I can stay 
much longer." 

His mate moved close to him and touched his 
nose with hers. 

"You'll come back when the summer is over," 
she said, "and you will find us here." 

" Shall I?" returned the Urson, doubtfully, more 
91 



In Nature s School 

to himself than her. They had forgotten Phil, 
who was rather in the way. He was glad when the 
Mother Porcupine came back to the present, and 
asked him to try some fine spruce bark. 

"I wish I could give you buckwheat," she 
remarked, "for it might be more to your taste. 
You're not hungry? That's very strange. We 
always are — when we're awake!" She finished her 
sentence with a wide yawn, and Phil took this as 
a hint that she wanted to go to sleep — which was 
indeed the case. He refused her kind offer of a bed 
for the day, and the Urson then insisted upon 
showing him a short cut through the wood. On 
the way he grew quite talkative. 

"That's a bee-tree," he said, as they passed a 
big maple with a hollow trunk. "The bees may 
thank me that the bears have not robbed them of 
their wealth long before now. That crooked branch, 
just half-way up, is a favourite resting-place of 
mine, and I allow no trespassing. If a bear appears 
and begins to climb with the idea of scooping out 

Q2 



A Den in the Rocks 

honey from the entrance, some feet higher, I go 
to meet him ; bears have tender noses, and don't care 
for quills. So they growl a bit and go down more 
quickly than they came up ... I wouldn't part 
with my quills for the strongest teeth in the 
world." 

"Your own teeth seem a very good size," said 
Phil, taking a look at them. 

" They 're not so bad," said the Urson, modestly. 
"But I use them chiefly for stripping bark from 
the trees. As weapons of defence they would not 
serve me, for if I tried to bite I should expose my 
throat and nose, which are the unprotefted parts of 
my body. If ever you see me asleep, you will notice 
that I hide my head between my forepaws; never 
expose your weak spot, you know! " 

They had come to an open space, and the sun 
shone down upon them with glowing ardour; the 
Urson thought of his cool dark den, and hastily 
wished Phil "good-bye." 

"There's 'Peeshoo' again," he said. "Have a 
93 



In Nature s School 

chat with her if you like, but don't tell her where 
I live, or about my son. He's too young to show 
fight yet. Good day to you." 

He walked off in that precise, deliberate way 
of his, but Phil was not to be left alone. The Lynx 
that he had caught sight of on the branch of the 
tree some time ago had been awaiting her oppor- 
tunity, and came running towards him with a 
series of noiseless bounds. Her back was arched, 
and her feet outspread; she was not unlike a long- 
bodied and heavily-built cat, Phil thought, though 
her peculiar ere6t ears, tipped by an upright tuft 
of coarse black bristles, proclaimed her at once as 
the Lynx of North America, of which the beavers 
had already told him. Her powerful feet were fur- 
nished with large white claws, almost hidden in 
her thick fur; her face was round, and her eyes as 
sharp and piercing as those of all her kind. She 
reached Phil's side as silently as if she were shod 
with velvet, and greeted him as if she had not seen 
him before. 

94 



A Den in the Rocks 

"Come and sit by me, you lonely little fellow," 
she purred. " No — you needn't be frightened. (' I 
wasn't,' said Phil.) The only creatures that are 
afraid of me are the hares and foxes, and if I didn't 
eat them they would soon overrun the whole 
place; I do it out of kindness, you know." 

She had seated herself on the ground as she was 
speaking, and made a soft and comfortable heap 
of fur. But Phil, though he, too, felt sleepy in the 
warm sunshine, was loth to do as she suggested 
and use her back as a cushion. 

"I've been very unjustly blamed," she began in 
a plaintive voice, when she had asked him what 
colour he thought her eyes, and whether he con- 
sidered her fur becoming. "Settlers say that I am 
in the habit of dropping from trees on to the backs 
of deer, and tearing their throats. They must mis- 
take the Puma for me — isn't it too bad?" 

" Much too bad," agreed Phil, though he won- 
dered a little if she were as innocent as she would 
have him believe. It was only politeness that kept 
95 



In Nature s School 

him beside her, for he wanted to play with the 
squirrels, who were much more to his liking. He 
could see one now beckoning to him from a great 
maple, as if he was very anxious to tell him some- 
thing that he had heard. With a great effort Phil 
turned his attention to '' Peeshoo " ; she was talking 
of the Wolverene, which he could see that she did 
not love. 

"He was so abominably greedy," she said, " and 
wanted our share as well as his own. Quite early 
this morning he was after one of my hares; it was 
a remarkably a6live little creature, and soon left 
him in the lurch. He caught a rabbit or two and 
a few birds, and might have been satisfied with 
those. But no — he wanted something larger, and 
ventured so near the mountains that a Grizzly 
Bear, who had strolled down to see what these 
woods were like, found him nosing about his 
breakfast, which he had just killed. What he said 
to the Grizzly I don't know, but it couldn't have 
pleased him, for with a single blow of his heavy 

96 



A Den in the Rocks 

paw the great bear struck him down. That Wol- 
verene will never try to rob me of my hares again ! " 

" Was he quite killed? " Phil asked her anxiously, 
and "Peeshoo" smiled an ugly smile that showed 
her teeth and made Phil draw away from her. 

"Don't you know yet what the paw of a big 
Grizzly is, child ? It would kill a man, let alone an 
animal like the Wolverene. I keep out of the way 
of the Grizzlies myself — I find it wiser, and so will 
you." 

But Phil knew well that even a Grizzly would 
not harm him, and he had always been fond of 
bears. Some day he would go and see them; they 
were brave creatures, at any rate, and could tell 
him much that he longed to know. 

" Peeshoo " talked on, but he scarcely heard her. 
So the Wolverene had been killed himself, instead of 
killing the beavers, and for the present at least they 
would be safe. How glad Father Beaver would be, 
he thought; it was good news this time that he had 
to tell him, and as soon as he could get rid of 
97 G 



In Nature s School 

"Peeshoo" he would hasten back to the Colony. 
He did not mention the beavers to her, for he 
thought it quite possible that she might eat other 
small animals besides foxes and hares; and he was 
learning to be very careful not to injure his friends. 

When "Peeshoo's" hunger grew stronger than 
her interest in her companion, Phil and she parted 
company. Phil went straight to the river, and 
followed its course until he came to the Beavers' 
dome-shaped houses. Of the beavers themselves 
there was no sign. 

" I'll explore one of their tunnels," thought Phil. 
He dived into the river, using his right leg instead 
of a tail to splash the water as the beavers did, and 
soon found a beaver's hole. 

"Anyone at home?" he sang out gaily, as he ran 
through the tunnel's twists and turns. 

"We're here!" cried Mother Beaver from its 

innermost recesses; and there Phil found her with 

her young ones, looking most forlorn. 

"What is the matter?" he asked, for he had 

98 



A Den in the Rocks 

never seen her so distressed. She was shaking all 
over as she told him, and her voice w^as broken 
w^ith sobs. 

The night before, it seemed, almost immediately 
after Phil had left them, the Wolverene had made 
an unexpected attack. All had seemed safe, and the 
beavers had for a moment relaxed their guard. Drop- 
ping from the branches of a tree into their very 
midst, the Wolverene had pounced on a plump 
young beaver just then engaged in felling a v^^illov^ 
sapling; in spite of his struggles there had been no 
chance for him, and the Wolverene had eaten him 
then and there. Not content v^ith this, he had taken 
his stand upon the river bank, intent on further 
prey. The young beavers v^ere trembling still, and 
even the bravest of their elders weix afraid to ven- 
ture out from their retreat. 

When Mother Beaver heard what had happened 
to the Wolverene in the early morning, she could 
scarcely contain herself for joy, and Father Beaver, 
who had sought his family in vain in the winter 

99 G2 



In Nature s School 

houses, where many of the colony had taken 
refuge, would have embraced Phil had he known 
how. He straightway planned a wonderful new 
dam that should put the old one to shame; and 
the number of trees the beavers felled that night 
was simply marvellous. Nowhere along the river 
banks were more contented creatures than they; 
and many a timid wood thing, unknown to them, 
shared their thanksgiving that the Wolverene was 
dead. 

Father Beaver was interested to learn from 
Phil of the Hackees' narrow escape. 

" We have all our foes," he said, "and must fight 
them as best we can, with our wits or our teeth, the 
weapons Nature has given us. That Stoat you saw 
will perhaps be trapped this winter; his brownish 
coat will turn pure white when the snow comes, 
and he will be called an 'ermine' instead of a 
'stoat'; and then the hunters will be after him." 

"Then the Ermine and the Stoat are the same 
creature?" cried Phil in amazement. 

ICO 



Den in the Rocks 

"The very same," said Father Beaver, "and Er- 
mine fur is more valuable than our own. All sorts 
of traps v^ill be set for him, for as his coat w^ill be 
the same colour as the snow, it will be almost im- 
possible for the fur hunters to take him in any 
other way." 

" I wonder why his fur turns white in winter ? " 
Phil said, thoughtfully. 

Father Beaver looked thoughtful too. " It is said 
to keep him much warmer than if it were dark," 
he remarked: " But I should think that it is so that 
he may not readily be seen against the snow. Per- 
haps that is Nature's way of taking care of him. We 
are all her children. But come — these are things 
that neither you nor I can understand." 



lOI 




Chapter the Sixth 

up in the Mountains 
OR woods in a region so far north 
it was very warm. The beavers 
dozed through the summer hours, 
and the humming of the bees grew 
drowsier every day. The merry 
little Chipping Squirrels stayed in the shelter 
of the timber; the Warblers and Wrens and Scarlet 
Tanagers took refuge under the thickest leaves, 
while the wood mice and other small wood folk 
basked in the unusual heat. 

Down from the mountains came a tiny breeze. It 
was so small that the surface of the river was only 
slightly rufHed; yet it made much difference to 
Phil. For it brought him a message from the blue 
distance — that wonderful blue that softened the 

I02 



up in the Mountains 

outlines of the great peaks until they were like 
tinted amethysts set deep in the turquoise sky; and 
when Father Beaver stirred from his sleep in the 
cool of the evening, Phil was standing beside him, 
with his green belt firmly girt, as became a tra- 
veller. 

"I must go to the mountains, dear Beaver," he 
said, and Father Beaver understood. And then, as 
Phil was trying to tell him how grateful he was for 
all that he had learned, and for the kindness that 
had been shown to him, he felt himself lifted from 
the side of his furry friend, high up above the tree 
tops. 

"We will go to the mountains," whispered a 
voice, "the mountains from whence I sprang." 
And under the stars the night wind carried him 
safely, murmuring such slumber songs as they went 
that he was fast asleep long before the journey was 
over. 

It is rather startling to wake in the cave of a 

Grizzly Bear, and when Phil opened his eyes he 
103 



In Natures School 

thought at first that he must be dreaming still. The 
cave was very dark. At the far end he could see 
something w^hite that glistened. It looked — yes! 
— like a pile of bones. He turned his head at once. 
He did not want to think what that must mean. 

A story his mother had told him, when he was 
quite a little chap, of " the big bear, the middling 
sized bear and the baby bear'' came back to his 
mind; here were all three, and he himself lying 
comfortably beside them. It was certainly very 
odd. 

The big bear was very big indeed. As he lay 
asleep with his head on the back of the middling- 
sized bear, and one great paw stretched over the 
baby bear, he looked enormous. His coat, which 
was very thick and shaggy, and of a wonderful 
steely hue, made Phil think of a large fur rug; his 
feet were wide and very long; his toes were armed 
with deep claws, or talons, as sharp as chisels. His 
head was so huge that it might have belonged to 
some giant bear, and in his slightly open mouth 

104 



up in the Mountains 

Phil could see yellow teeth that looked powerful 
enough to make mincemeat of one small boy. 

" But he won't hurt me^'' he said to himself, and 
took a look at the middling-sized bear and the baby 
bear. 

The middling-sized bear wore a coat of some 
soft dull brown. Her claws, though quite long 
enough to satisfy most bears, were not so deep 
as her lord and master's. There was a meekness 
about her snout' which seemed to say that he kept 
her in good order; but the baby bear's was very 
jaunty, as if all his short life he had had his own 
way. He stuck it out inquisitively when he caught 
sight of Phil, who had been gently tickling his ear 
in order to wake him, and looked so very like his 
old brown bear as he opened one roguish eye and 
tried to wink, that Phil put his arm round his neck 
and hugged him. 

"I'm Phil," he said, "and I want you to play 
with me. I had a bear just like you once. I loved 
him very much indeed." 
105 



In Nature s School 

" Of course you did," said the baby bear, cuddling 
up closer, and giving him an affectionate lick. 
" What happened when he grew up? Did you shut 
him into a cage with nasty iron bars and send him 
away to strangers? My mother says that is what 
generally happens to young bears when folks get 
tired of them, or find them troublesome. She 
says — " 

Before the baby bear could finish his sentence 
the cave was filled with a deafening growl from 
the big Grizzly, who was glaring at Phil as if he 
were going to eat him. 

"What a fine loud voice you have, Mr Bear," 
said Phil when the growling suddenly ceased. 

"Aren't you afraid?" asked the Grizzly. 

"Not a bit! " said Phil. "Nature said no crea- 
ture should harm me, and of course she knows." 

"You have learnt one lesson already — that of 

not being afraid," said the great bear approvingly: 

" you can always trust Nature to tell the truth." 

He gave Phil's head a kindly pat which nearly 

io6 



up in the Mountains 

knocked him over, and the young bear, not to be 
outdone, said that he would be his " big brother," 
and " show him round." He had only lived as 
many months as Phil had years, but neither of 
them thought of that. 

"I'll take you to see where the bees keep their 
honey when my father has gone off hunting," he 
promised, sprawling over his sleepy mother. 
"They call him 'the King' up here, and not an 
animal in these mountains dare defy him." 

" I should just think not," said Phil. For the 
Grizzly, who was standing up now, was indeed a 
mighty beast. So dauntless was his bearing that 
Phil could understand how even a strong man, 
armed, might flee at his approach; it was a matter 
of course that wolves and foxes and such-like crea- 
tures should keep their distance. 

After his first trial of Phil's courage, the big 

Grizzly spoke to him no more. A mighty hunger 

was gnawing inside him. The young Moose he 

had brought home two nights before had barely 
107 



In Nature s School 

sufficed to satisfy the young bear and his mother; 
there had been Httle left for him, the giver of the 
feast, for with kingly generosity he had let them 
feed first. He could not wait until the evening to 
go hunting; he must start now. 

So he stretched himself with a deep growl; the 
young bear and his mother growled in response — 
it was their way of wishing him good luck. As he 
shuffled out of the cave, his shaggy fur shook 
round him like a swaying mantle. His gait was 
awkward, and he rolled slightly from side to side; 
but for all that there was majesty in every inch of 
him. 

"Now we can play," said the baby bear, when 
his mother had strolled ofF after allowing her lord 
and master sufficient start. They wrestled with 
each other until they were both out of breath; the 
bear threw Phil down easily at first, and his fat 
little sides shook with laughter as he rolled him 
over and then sat on his head. After a little prac- 
tice, however, Phil was his equal, and "Bruno," 

io8 



up in the Mountains 

as his mother called him, good naturedly gave 
him some tips. 

" We shall have more room outside/' he said at 
last, and the boy and the bear trotted off together 
to a small table-land, where a hollow tree brought 
Bruno to a sudden stop. The low humming that 
came from its neighbourhood told Phil what the 
young bear knew already — that this was a bee-tree, 
and full of comb. He more than half expected to 
see a doughty knight in armour guarding its 
treasures, but no Urson was there. 

"I'm going to get some honey," said Bruno, 
trying to find an opening sufficiently large to admit 
his paw. But the bees had known what they were 
after when they chose that tree; the outside bark 
was sound enough, and the opening that led to the 
hollow trunk was high above the ground. 

Bruno was not to be defeated. He climbed into 
the branches with the agility of a squirrel. 

" My father couldn 't do this," he said, grinning 

down at Phil. "He's far too heavy — grizzlies can 
109 



In Nature^ s School 

only climb when they are young. Dear me! how- 
tiresome some bees are. I shall have to make a hole 
for myself after all — the comb is too far down for 
me to reach it unless." 

It did not take him long. He gnawed his way 
into the wood until he had made a space wide 
enough for him to thrust in his forepaw; then he 
scraped out the honey with keen delight, and ate 
it, comb and all, while the bees buzzed round him 
in angry protest. Phil refused his share of the lus- 
cious sweetness. 

" They give some to me of their own accord," he 
said to Bruno, when he was once more on the 
ground, " and I should not like to take it from them 
by force. It would be most dreadfully ungrateful, 
don't vou think?" 

Bruno refledled for a moment; then laughed and 

shrugged his shoulders. "They would sting me if 

they could," he said, " but my coat is too thick. I '11 

find some berries for you — there are ripe ones in 

the scrub." 

no 



up in the Mountains 

The berries were plentiful, and the roots that 
Bruno found for him were soft and juicy. Bruno 
curled himself up at his feet while he ate them. 

"/haven't lived nearly a whole year yet," said 
the young bear happily, licking the last trace of 
honey from his paw. " I was born in a warm little 
den right under the snow, which mother had built 
herself. She was telling me all about it before you 



came." 



"Then you tell me," urged Phil, watching him 
slice a big root in two with his claws as neatly as he 
himself could have done it with a pocket-knife. 
Bruno was pleased enough to tell him all he knew, 
and very proud of his mother's wisdom. 

" I suppose you 've heard," he began importantly, 
"that there are bears in almost every part of the 
world. Besides ourselves in North America there 
are Musquaws, or black bears — harmless creatures 
who mind their own business, mother says, and 
interfere with no one if they are let alone. Then 
there are brown bears and polar bears, and many 



1 1 1 



In Nature s School 

other kinds. But WE are the really best ones!" 
He stuck his head on one side, looking more like 
Phil's toy bear than ever, and lolled out his nice 
pink tongue. Phil reminded him about the den his 
mother had made, for he wanted to hear if bears, 
too, had winter houses. 

"She dug it deep in the ground in Oflober, 
before the frosts came," he said. " Some bears go to 
sleep for the winter in hollow trees, or build them- 
selves mossy hillocks in which they lie on soft dry 
leaves and branches of pine trees. But my mother 
prefers a den. When the white snow comes and 
covers it up no one can find her, and she is safe. All 
through the winter she stays there, for bears, you 
know, don't want anything to eat from the late fall 
until the spring. They live on the fat that Nature 
has been storing up for them all the summer under 
their fur, and when they come out of their dens in 
April they are very hungry and very fierce. Even 
the hunters keep away from us then; they are 
afraid! Hark! what was that?" 

112 



up in the Mountains 

A distant shot rang out over the mountains. 

"They are hunting the Moose," said Bruno, 
"and that makes father angry, for the Moose 
belong to TJS, The White Man and the Indians are 
driving them far av^ay; there were many round 
these mountains once upon a time; nov^,only afew. 
And Moose is so good to eat! 

"It's a pity you don't hve on roots and bark, as 
my friends the beavers do. They " 

"Listen!" cried Bruno again. This time it was 
not the report of a rifle that reached Phil's ears, but 
the liquid note of a bird. 

"That's an Arctic Fox calling for his dinner," 
said Bruno in a whisper. He stole silently towards 
the scrub and peered beneath the bushes. Hisbaby- 
ish face looked keen enough now, and his small eyes 
gleamed redly. He came back to Phil with a dis- 
appointed grunt, and insisted upon trying to smooth 
out his curls. 

"Couldn't find him," he said, combing Phil's 
hair with his claws. "He has gone down into his 

113 H 



In Nature s School 

burrow. Did you hear him imitating the birds? He 
does it so cleverly that they are often taken in, and 
think that he is another bird. When they come 
close enough to the bush under which he is hiding, 
he pounces upon them; and there's his dinner." 

Phil felt very sorry for the birds. He felt sorry 
too for the foxes, when he heard how easily the 
hunter trapped and caught them. Bruno laughed 
with scorn as he described how they "gave 
themselves away " by hanging their heads out of 
their burrovv^s to yelp at their foes, who otherwise 
might not find them. 

"Father says they are just like too-talkative 
humans, who chatter away when they are watch- 
ing a trail," said Master Bruno, who was a great 
talker himself. 

When Bruno had wandered off on business of 
his own, and Phil was quite alone, a hazel-eyed 
little fox came up to him and allowed him to stroke 
his beautiful silken fur. It was blue-grey now, and 
very long and thick; in the winter, he told him, it 

114 



up in the Mountains 

would be snow white, and in the spring, perhaps, 
a mottled brown or stone colour. 

" So they call us ' White ' and ' Blue ' and ' Sooty' 
and ' Pied,' " he said in aggrieved tones. " There are 
more of us in Iceland and Siberia than here, but we 
love these mountains, and the soil is so loose that 
our burrows are easily made. We dig these out in 
the summer, and twenty or thirty of us live to- 
gether." 

" I should like to go down one with you," said 
Phil, who was particularly interested in burrows, 
and meant to be an engineer when he grew up. 
Before the Arctic fox could lead the way, a bulky 
shape came down a well-trodden path on the moun- 
tain side, and the fox was off. 

A big black bear — Phil knew from his colour 
and the glossiness of his fur that this must be the 
Musquaw — sat down on his haunches and stared at 
him in much the same way that the Grizzly had 
done. His face was wise, and very gentle. Phil 
thought he would like to know more of him, and 

115 H2 



In Nature s School 

was glad when he asked him if he had time to come 
round to his den. 

" If you 're tired, I can give you a ride," he said; 
and though Phil now never felt tired at all, he 
jumped up on his broad back and held on tight 
while the Musquaw trotted up the mountain side, 
treading in another of the well-worn narrow roads 
that Phil had noticed. 

" These are our paths," said the Musquaw. " We 
tread them over and over again, so that in time they 
become as well-worn as you see. Now here's my 
den; and here's mv little fam-il-ee! " 

Phil thought the Musquaw's den much more 
cheerful than the Grizzlies', for here were no glis- 
tening bones. The Musquaw, as Phil knew, was a 
"berry-eating bear," seldom or never touching 
flesh, with the exception of that of the tiny snails 
so plentiful in the mountains after rain, and even 
fonderof honey than the Grizzlies. His "fam-il-ee" 
consisted of an amiable young spouse and four cin- 
namon-coloured young ones. Though born in the 

ii6 



up in the Mountains 

same month as Bruno they were not nearly so large. 
Their father touched them very gently as he showed 
them one by one, for his great strength made him 
very tender with weakness. 

"When first they came they were only six 
inches long, the scamps," remarked their mother, 
rubbing them over fondly. "They were covered 
with grey hair then, but now, as you see, they are 
more brown than grey. When they are a year old 
they will change their coats for glossy black ones, 
like their father's and mine." 

They were bright, afFeftionate little creatures, 
and so disappointed when they found that Phil did 
not care for snails that he tried to eat one to please 
them. They gave him a corner of their den "for 
his very own," as they said, and begged him to 
promise that he would come again. 

"Of course I will," said Phil. "I love the 

mountains, and mean to stay here for quite a long 

time." 

But two things happened that same evening 
117 



In Nature s School 

which made him wish to leave as much as he had 
longed to come. 

The first happened as he waited for Bruno at the 
place where they had agreed to meet — by the bee- 
tree on the lower plateau. The Musquaw, intent 
upon his berry-gathering, was lingering by a great 
bush that skirted one of the little paths he had 
called his own. Unseen by him, and from the direc- 
tion where the wind could not carry him the warn- 
ing scent, two fierce-looking men with rifles tracked 
him warily through the scrub; his head, with its 
wise, kind eyes, was visible for a moment above the 
the bush; the men raised their rifles and fired, and 
the Musquaw, his glossy coat all trailed in the dust, 
gave a convulsive shudder and lay quite still. 

As Phil remembered the "little fam-il-ee" 
waiting in the cave, the hot tears rushed blindingly 
to his eyes. He thought, too, of his merry play- 
fellow of the morning, and a growing fear that he 
also might have been shot made him hasten back to 

the Grizzlies. 

ii8 




"He was very anj^ry 



up in the Mountains 

He took the wrong turning and lost the way; he 
was on the other side of the mountain, he knew, 
for it looked down on a wide, desolate lake of pur- 
ple-grey, instead of on green woods and a winding 
river. To his great joy he saw the "King of the 
Mountains "not far off, and would have hailed him. 
But instin(5l,to which Father Beaver had told him 
he must always listen, warned him to wait a mo- 
ment, and he moved quietly into the shadow of a 
rock. 

What could the Grizzly be doing? He was 

burying something in a deep pit under a mass of 

loose earth and leaves ; something he meant to 

come back for later on, Phil guessed, as he could 

not carry both that and the young doe — poor, 

pretty thing, with that ugly tear in her pearl-grey 

throat! — which was lying beside him. He was very 

angry, that was clear; for his deep growls were like 

the low threatenings of thunder, and the primrose 

evening light shone on his bared teeth as his lips 

were drawn back savagely. 
119 



In Nature s School 

When he had finished the burying to his satis- 
faftion he shuffled off, and Phil, longing to call 
him, yet still warned to silence by instinft, waited 
patiently for what would happen next. Presently 
the loose stones at the top of the pit stirred ; a 
brow^n hand was pushed through cautiously, and 
was followed by the rest of an Indian's body. One 
arm hung limp and useless beside him, and the 
marks of the bear's cruel talons ran across his face. 
The Grizzly had struck him down, and, taking 
his faintness for death, had buried him under the 
sandy earth. 

Half dazed still, the Indian crept down the path, 
and Phil called to the night wind. "Take me 
away," he cried to her entreatingly. "I can't go 
back to the Grizzlies — not even for Bruno's sake. 
For some day he will grow up too, and then, per- 
haps, he '11 want to bury Indians alive and eat them ! '* 

The night wind comforted him, even as Na- 
ture had done, and gathered him very close, as if 
she were glad to have him in her arms again. 



I20 




Chapter the Seventh 

On Greenland' s Shores 
OUNTAINS again, but this time 
white and glistening, with the 
steel-blue crests of glaciers raised 
sharp against the snow. It was 
Greenland's brief summer, and 
the sun and the warm east winds had melted some 
of the ice that bound her coast ; a fringe of green 
hung over the land that had been but lately a 
frozen waste, and in the shelter of the tall reeds 
some poppies showed their flaming heads. 

Phil stood on a shore by a rock of crystal that 
glittered with all the colours of the rainbow where 
it caught the light. The air was fresh and keen ; 
his little bare feet would have been cold but for the 
way in which his blood danced through them. 

121 



In Nature s School 

Not a creature was in sight, and he felt lonely. 

'^ Whoo-hoo-hoo-who ! '' he called; it was the cry 
of the Hushwing he had heard in the Northern 
woods, and came more naturally to his lips than any 
other. 

'^ Whoo-hoo-hoo-who-oo ! '' echoed from a rocky 
crag, and a Snowy Owl sailed down to meet him 
on majestic wings. Her golden eyes gazed steadily 
into his, and filled him with shyness. He wished she 
would speak, for he did not know what to say. 

"Have you lived here always ? " he asked her 
presently, standing on one leg, as he had often 
been scolded for doing at school. Her wings were 
motionless in the sunlight, and when she spoke her 
voice " boomed " as the Hushwing's had done, only 
much more deeply. 

" I have lived here always," she said ; "through 
the dreary night of winter and the flying summer 
days. Long before that valiant Norseman, Erik the 
Red, came to these shores and named them ' Green- 
land,' some thousands of years ago, the Snowy 

122 



On Greenland's Shores 

Owls flew over the island and called it theirs. 
It was all their own then, save for the birds and 
bears and seals, and a few strange men. But come 
with me, and I will show you wonderful things." 

Fixing her great claws on a low ledge of the 
crystal rock, she lowered her wings and told Phil 
to sit between them. Pleased and wondering, he 
obeyed, and with steady, noiseless flight she carried 
him inland, until they were passing over the 
countless leagues of the frozen sea. 

"This is Greenland's 'ice cap,'" she said. "It 
never melts." 

She hovered so close to the ice that Phil could 
see numbers of tiny holes in its smooth surface. At 
the bottom of each was a tiny drop of water, 
shining between floating particles of soft grey dust. 

"That is 'ice powder,'" said the Snowy Owl, in 
her most superior manner, "and is formed of the 
atoms of dust which hang suspended in the atmos- 
phere, and fall to earth with the falling snow. 
It is the home of myriads of tiny plants. Some of 
123 



In Natures School 

these are 'diatoms' — minute cells of soft vegetable 
matter cased in a mineral film, one half of which 
fits over the other like the lid of a pill box. Others 
are a species of seaweed, so small that you could 
not see them unless great numbers were together. 
Diatoms, though belonging to the vegetable king- 
dom, have extraordinary powers of movement; 
some are shaped like crescents, or forests of minia- 
ture trees, or beaded necklaces. 

"You will find these minute plants in the little 
pools where the sun has melted the ice, with mil- 
lions of little animals who feed upon them." 

" Little animals?" cried Phil. " Do let me look !'* 
But all that he could see were some very small 
specks floating on the top of water that was yellow- 
ish brown. 

" It is the tiny plants which make it that colour," 
said the Owl, looking wiser than ever, " and those 
wee specks are little animals which, although 
formed of a single cell, have mouths and gullets 
and other organs." 

124 



On Greenland's Shores 

" It's very wonderful," sighed Phil. " I wish that 
I could see them for myself." 

"Some day you may," she told him; and then 
once more soared upward through the clear white 
sunbeams towards the sky. 

Higher, and higher still they went; they were 
over the mountains now. As the Snowy Owl winged 
her flight above the glaciers, the unearthly beauty of 
the scene caused Phil's heart to thrill with a strange 
emotion. It was as though he had crossed the dread 
river, and had entered into the heavenly city. Far 
and wide the lovely vision spread open to his timid 
gaze, like a fairy palace of crystal and pearl and 
rose, and he feared to speak lest the sound of his 
voice should dispel the wondrous sight. 

Slowly the Owl descended to earth again. 

" What do you see on the snow?" she asked him 
suddenly. 

"Thousands of sparkling diamonds," said Phil, 

and the Snowy Owl bade him look once more. He 

noticed then that here and there were curious 
125 



In Nature s School 

patches of red and yellow on the pure white. 

" Those are tiny animals, too," she said — "multi- 
tudes of jelly spheres, each smaller than a pin's 
head. 

"There is a red 'Snow Plant,' also, which I will 
show you presently, and on the crystals of newly 
fallen snow you may often see curious little insefts 
which move by thrusting out two long, stiff bristles, 
which grow where their tails should be. They 
usually carry these neatly folded underneath them, 
but when they want to jump they jerk them straight 
out, and fly into the air like quaint toy frogs on a 
very large scale." 

Many other wonders did the Snowy Owl show 

Phil in the island she loved so well. He listened with 

awe to her stories of all that happened during the 

months of darkness when the sun was never seen; 

but he laughed when she showed him the frowning 

crags which the Esquimaux believe to be the 

hiding-place of their fathers' spirits, who come 

down from the moon to revisit Greenland. 

126 



On Greenland's Shores 

The Owl looked very solemn. "Who knows? " 
she said, and spoke no more until they had reached 
the fringe of green again. The sea-gulls called from 
the shore, and the Gyr-Falcon, fair of plumage as 
the Owl herself, wheeled high above them. The 
cheery twitter of the Little Auks came with the 
soft murmur of the sea, and the beautiful Arctic 
Gull, her coral breast glowing against the snow, 
preened her feathers carefully. 

The Snowy Owl flew to a shelving bank covered 
deep with moss and lichen. 

" And now you shall see the most beautiful thing 
on the island," she said; and showed him a roughly 
built nest half hidden on a crumbling ledge. Downy 
white owlets, little and big, filled it to overflowing; 
they greeted their mother with clamorous cries of 
hunger, and opened such yawning mouths that they 
seemed to be all beaks and feathers. 

" Have patience, my owlets," she cried fondly; 
and, pacifying them with a few deep notes of love, 

left Phil beside them while she went to fetch them 

127 



In Nature s School 

food. He had scarcely perched himself upon the 
edge of the nest to make their closer acquaintance 
when a tiny little mouse-like animal, with a wee 
tail barely half an inch long, crept out of the 
moss. 

" Did you ever see such a family? " he said, dis- 
dainfully, as the owlets gaped. "The Snowy Owl 
lays her eggs all through the spring, and in the 
same nest, whenever the fancy takes her. If you 
had come earlier in the year you would have seen 
the first brood of owlets helping her to hatch the 
second. They go to sleep on the smooth white 
eggs, and save her any amount of trouble." 

The mouse-like little animal kept one eye on 
the sky, noting the Owl's movements, while he 
talked to Phil, and his look was anything but kindly. 

"There is nothing she would like better than 
to swoop down upon me^'' he said, with a squeak- 
ing bark of anger. " She flies by day instead of by 
night, which is rather a nuisance so far as I am 

concerned. Yes — I live on the island, too, and find 

128 



On Greenland" s Shores 

plenty of grass and reeds to feed on when the snows 
have melted. In the winter there is only moss for 
me, and I have to dig deep even for that. I make 
air shafts up to the surface of the snow, as Nature 
taught me, so that I can breathe comfortably when 
I am at work. The Snowy Owl and the Gyr- 
Falcon are always on the look out, but, as you 
see, they haven't caught me yet. I should fight 
them if I were only a little larger!" 

In spite of his small size he looked both fierce 
and determined as he sat on the grey-green moss 
and stared scornfully at the nest. 

"Such eyes and beaks!" he said. " You should 
see //y little ones — they're the sweetest things in 
the world." His hard voice softened, and when 
next he spoke it was quite amiably. 

"I am one of the Lemmings," he said when Phil 

ventured to ask his name. "Haven't you heard of 

us? In the North of Europe we are greatly dreaded, 

for we sweep over trails of country in our thousands, 

coming from no one knows where, and swarming 
129 I 



In Nature's School 

over everything we find in our path. We eat our 
way through fields of corn, and even haystacks; 
we swim through lakes and rivers, and nothing — 
not even fire itself — can make us swerve aside once 
we have made up our minds to go on. When we 
have passed, there is no green thing left; we are 
'worse than locusts,' the people say, and they are 
glad when we reach the sea, and are swallowed up. 
It is the only thing that can conquer us." 

The baby owlets raised their hunger cry as they 
saw the big white owl coming towards them from 
afar off^with something in her beak, and the Lem- 
ming gave another sharp squeak of anger and dis- 
appeared beneath the moss. While her young ones 
divided the spoil, Phil tried to question their 
mother about the Lemmings, but she had no atten- 
tion to spare for him just then. Those little owlets 
of hers must not go hungry, and their appetites 
were large. Some other creature than she must do 
the honours of the island now. 

"You'll find some Harp Seals in Silver Bay, be- 

130 



On Greenland' s Shores 

hind the glaciers," she said. The downiest owlet 
whispered to Phil that he would like to see those 
Harp Seals too, and Phil, delighted to have com- 
pany, tucked him under his arm. The Snowy Owl, 
who had just soared off on another flight, swooped 
down as if shot from the sky, and,seizing the owlet 
in her strong beak, dropped him back into the 
nest without a word. Slightly abashed, Phil hurried 
away. That baby owl was so soft and warm, and 
his eyes as golden as the sun; Phil wished his 
mother had not come back so soon. 

But he thought no more of the owlet when he 
reached the bay. Ice islands floated on its tossing 
waters, and on these, as on the shelving beach, lay 
curious creatures fast asleep. Some were cream 
colour or pearly white; others— much larger than 
these — had irregular patches or stripes of black on 
their pale skins, or small black spots. The largest of 
all were of a soft dove grey, with huge black figures 
on their backs shaped like an ancient harp. As Phil 
drew nearer, a seal posted as sentinel on the broadest 
131 



In Nature s School 

island gave a peculiar cry. The sleeping seals were 
in an instant awake; there was a hurried consulta- 
tion, and then the largest amongst them dived off 
the ice and rushed violently to the shore, driving 
himself through the water by means of his hind 
feet, which both turned inwards. As he scrambled 
up the bank in eager haste — fully nine feet of drip- 
ping seal- — his soft brown eyes were as full of intel- 
ligence as those of a human being. 

" We heard that you were coming, O little one !'' 
he cried, "and in the name of all the seals we wel- 
come you. I am an Attersoak, or fifth-year seal, and 
the ruler of our herd; my people call me the ' Great 
Chief,' and many are the dangers through which 
I have led them safely." 

The seals on the beach, seeing that Phil had been 
received in so friendly a manner by their ruler, ven- 
tured to approach him, shuffling rapidly over the 
glistening stones. Amongst them were many young 
ones, and these were all of the same soft creamy 

white. Phil noticed that they kept a respectful 

132 



On Greenland's Shores 

distance from the Attersoak, whose great feet 
would have crushed them easily. 

"This beach is our 'rookery,' or 'nursery/'* 
said the old seal graciously. "On our floating ice 
islands, or in the swirl of the sea, seal mothers 
could not tend and feed their young. So they seek 
some quiet bay where they are not likely to be dis- 
turbed, and there our little ones are born. As soon 
as they are strong enough to face the waters, we 
shall teach them how to dive and swim, even as we 
do ourselves, and then we shall be off on a long 
journey southward. We make two of these journeys 
every year, travelling under the stars when Green- 
land is far behind us, when the moon turns the 
sky to silver. During the day we eat and sleep, and 
grow fat, after our long fasts on land, which some- 
times we do not break for two or three months at 
a time. Our battles are over then, and we have no- 
thing to do but to enjoy ourselves. 

"The colour of our coats," he went on, seeing 
that Phil was interested, "changes every year until 
133 



In Nature s School 

we reach full growth. During our first year it is 
cream colour; the second, pearl grey; when we are 
three years old the grey is striped, and in our fourth 
year we are decorated with spots. When we reach 
our fifth year we are as you see me now ! " And he 
threw back his head with a lordly gesture, and dis- 
missed his attendant wives. 

"You and I will bask in the sun," he said to Phil, 
"and I will tell you anything you wish to know." 

The sun was warm, and Phil stretched his limbs 
on the smooth stones some little distance from the 
wet seal. But almost as he looked at him his fur 
became quite dry — the water had all run off\, as it 
did from his own brown coat. 

" In our case that is because the skin beneath our 
fur is always giving out a liquid oil which makes 
it waterproof. Some seals have two coats of fur, as 
perhaps you know, one tightly packed beneath 
the other. Nature has provided these, just as she 
does the thick layer of fat immediately beneath 
the surface of our skin, as a protection against the 

134 



On Greenland' s Shores 

bitter cold of the ice fields. This underskin" — his 
voice dropped, and he looked warily round to see 
that none of the young Attaraks, as the Greenlanders 
call the yearling seals, were near him — " is the ' seal- 
skin ' men value so highly that year by year we, who 
would harm no one, are killed by thousands . . ." 

"Those queer little people called the Esquimaux 
live in these regions, don't they? " asked Phil hur- 
riedly, very anxious to talk about something else. 
The seal's eyes shone as if there were tears in them, 
and Phil was grieved to think that he, too, might 
some day be hunted and killed. The mention of the 
Esquimaux was unfortunate, as he was to learn; for 
seals provide him with almost every necessity of 
his daily life. 

"Yes — the Esquimaux live in these regions," 
saidtheAttersoakmoodily, "asweknowtoourcost. 
When he shuts himself up for the winter in the 
snug little house he has hewn out of the ice, it is 
oil that he gets from our fat which gives him light 
and heat. Our flesh is his greatest dainty, and he 



In Nature s School 

clothes himself in the skins he has stolen from us. 
He hangs them too, on the walls of his house, and 
uses them to cover his Kajak — the little boat in 
which he hunts us — so that it may be watertight, 
and in the summer they form his tent. 'To kill a 
seal' is the ambition of every Esquimaux boy in 
Greenland from the moment he first draws breath, 
and some day — some day, perhaps, no more seals 
will be left to kill." 

" How do you know these things? " Phil had not 
meant to ask this question, but it slipped from his 
lips before he thought. 

The Attersoak looked past him to the blue waters 
of the bay with a deep sigh. 

''There are birds in the air,'' he said, "whose 

sight is keen. They call to each other over their 

hunting ground, which is the sea, and we have ears 

to hear. But for their warnings our sentinels would 

often be at fault, for we are a trustful herd; their 

shrill cry tells us when danger is at hand, and we are 

their grateful friends." 

136 



On Greenland" s Shores 

A very fat little seal that could only have been 
a few months old flopped up to the Attersoak's 
shoulder. He was chased by his mother, whose 
spotted coat showed that she was not yet full grown ; 
he seemed in a great hurry to speak before she 
came. 

'' Please, please need I go into the water yet?" 
he bleated. " It looks so cold, and I don't know how 
to swim!" 

"This moment!" roared the Attersoak, and the 
baby seal scuttled away, looking very frightened. 

" Instant obedience is the first thing he has to 
learn," remarked the old seal, watching the patient 
mother coaxing him to plunge down the steep bank 
after her. Other seals quickly followed her example, 
and before long all the young ones, many of whom 
had already been practising in rocky pools, were 
plunging and splashing in and out of the curling 
waves, trying to outdo each other by diving deep. 
Every few moments they came up to breathe through 
their widely opened nostrils, and the Attersoak ex- 
137 



In Nature s School 

plained to Phil how these are closed when the seals 
were under water. 

"The males of our herd will start to-night on 
our journey southward," he added, with a thrill of 
joy in his deep voice. "The others will follow a 
few days later. Will you come with us, little one, or 
do you wish to stay?" 

" If you don't mind, I'll stay," said Phil. " I want 
to see the Polar Bear." 

The Harp Seal looked at him in horrified sur- 
prise. 

"You want— to see — the Polar Bear!" he cried. 
" Well, it may be all right for you^ but he's our 
deadly enemy." 

He was so distressed that he unthinkingly gave 
the signal ^^ Dive'' by a sudden movement of his 
head. The same instant the watching sentinel on 
each floating island repeated it, and with one accord 
every single seal vanished as completely as if the 
sea had swallowed him. Their chief gave a low cry, 
which meant ^^ A false alarm^'' 2inA. upon the ice is- 



On Greenland" s Shores 

lands they jumped again, as quickly as well-trained 
soldiers at their drill. 

"One of the Esquimaux favourite ways of 
catching us," said the big seal, turning himself over 
clumsily so that the sun could reach his other side, 
"is to harpoon us when we are sleeping. Our sen- 
tinels, chosen by me for the quickness of their wits 
and the keenness of their sight, give the signal you 
saw just now, and before the Esquimaux can strike 
the ice is empty. Our herd was attacked last sum- 
mer by some men with hair as yellow as yours, 
who came in a ship with sails like a great white 
bird, and shot fire at us from long reeds . . . That 
is why our herd is smaller now than it has ever 
been before." 

The Attersoak shook himself as if he were 
weary. He had stayed longer on shore than was 
his custom, and his limbs were aching for a deep 
swim. 

"Is there anything more I can tell you?" he 
asked, with a longing look at the sea. Phil shook 
139 



In Nature s School 

his head, and the seal tumbled into the water with 
the joy of an animal returning to his native element. 

"We shall start on our journey to-night," he 
repeated joyfully, and the big seals on the floating 
islands took up the cry. 

His back was scarcely turned when a mother 
seal signalled to Phil to come and talk to her. 

"It makes our husbands so angry if we move 
about much on our own account," she whispered, 
as Phil sat down in the shadow of the rock upon 
which she lay, "or I would have come to you. They 
think we want to leave them altogether and go off 
to the fishing grounds. But we should not dream of 
going for more than a day or two until our babies 
are strong enough to face the breakers and can do 
without us. Look at mine — isn't he the sweetest 
little creature? Come here, my 'Snowbird,' and let 
us see how quickly you can climb a rock!" 

"Snowbird" — so named, Phil learnt, because his 
coat was almost pure white instead of a deep rich 
cream — had been wrestling with other small seals 

140 



On Greenland's Shores 

eager to show their strength, and was quite out of 
breath as he obeyed his mother's summons. He was 
a queer little fellow, with big wondering eyes and 
awkward flippers. His head was very large and 
inclined to wobble; he was one of the youngest of 
the baby seals, and by no means independent of his 
mother yet. He was as hungry as the owlets, Phil 
decided, as he nestled close to her and began to feed. 
The way she watched him gave Phil a lump in his 
throat. Someone had looked at him like that — once, 
long ago. 

"What would he do without you?" he asked 
her soberly. 

"He would die!" she answered, such a wealth 
of love in her soft eyes that they seemed to Phil like 
ambient lights. "Sometimes seal hunters kill us 
during the summer time, and then our young ones 
wait for us in vain, and starve." 

" Shall you take him with you to sea?" said Phil. 

The mother seal moved still closer to the warm 

little body pressed against her own. 
141 



In Nature s School 

" What do you say, my ' Snowbird '? " she asked 
him fondly. "Are you going to be a fisherman, and 
to ride on the white sea horses when a storm blows 
up from the west? I shall be glad to leave this 
beach," she went on to Phil, "for although it is' 
quiet and peaceful enough now, there were terrible 
times at first. The lords of the herd, who were 
waiting here before we came, as perhaps the Great 
Chief told you, fought fiercely for our possession, 
and when our babies were born it was always 
touch and go whether they might not get hurt. If 
we so much as moved a flipper without permission, 
our lords were angry, and they bit so savagely 
that we were afraid to stir. When the summer is 
over it is quite different; we are independent then." 

As Phil looked over the beach to the floating ice 
islands he became aware that a big seal on one of 
the nearest was regarding him very sternly. Fear- 
ful of getting "Snowbird's" mother into trouble, he 
strolled away, and made friends with some Ivory 

Gulls. 

142 



On Greenland' s Shores 

They told him of shipwrecks and terrible 
storms; of curious creatures who lived in the 
depths of the sea, and were only to be seen when 
the water was very still. Phil climbed the rocks and 
peeped at the ledges where the seabirds built their 
nests, and when they had gone to roost and would 
play with him no longer, he had another talk with 
the Lemming, who grudgingly showed him his 
summer home. He was not at all amiable; "per- 
haps," thought Phil, "he's been teased by a big- 
ger boy." 

When the clouds were softest lilac, and twilight 
had dimmed the whiteness of the snow, Phil re- 
turned to Silver Bay, to see the last of the Harp 
Seals. Headed by their Great Chief, the full grown 
males made for the south, swimming steadily in a 
straight line, with bodies curving widely through 
the water, as their swift strokes bore them on. Phil 
watched them until they were out of sight; then he 
found his way back to the nest of the Snowy Owl, 
and snuggled himself in among her owlets. 
H3 




Chapter the Eighth 

' ' Lord of the Snows ' 
HE Snowy Owl was up betimes 
next morning; the sky was still 
alight with amber and rose and 
crimson when the young owls 
called for their breakfast. Phil 
clambered out of the nest and thought he would 
like some too; he remembered seeing a cluster of 
berries on a trailing bush, and he knew that they 
were good to eat because he saw that the birds had 
taken some already. 

As he munched them he thought of the Polar 
Bear and wondered where he would be likely to 
find him. The Snowy Owl, who had grown quite 
fond of him already because his face was almost as 

round as her own owlets', and his eyes so soft and 

144 



Lord of the Snows 

grey, gave him a gentle tap with her beak as he 
swallowed the last mouthful, and asked if she could 
help him. 

"The largest bear I have ever seen — 'Lord of 
the Snows ' they call him — lives further up the 
coast," she said in reply to his question, " He is in 
a sorry plight just now, for all his lordship, for his 
mate and his little cub were killed by the Green- 
landers some nights ago, before his very eyes. I 
will take you part of the way to him if you are 
sure you want to go." 

Phil nodded — he was quite sure; and when the 
little owlets ceased to demand "more" each time 
their mother fed them, she lowered her stately 
wings, and Phil nestled between them again. 

Away to the North she sped. The world was 
a'glitter with ice and snow, and the fringe of green 
left far behind. They sank down slowly over a 
rock-strewn path hedged in with glaciers. 

" Whoo — 00 — whoo — 00 — hoo — ool " she boomed. 
"I must leave you now, for I dare not stay away 
H5 K 



In Nature s School 

from my babies longer. But if you want me you 
have only to give my call.'' 

He was glad she had said that, for the glaciers 
looked forbidding now that the sun was hidden by 
sullen clouds. A low deep roaring reached his ears; 
it came from the other side of the rocks, and was 
sadder, he thought, than the moaning of the sea. 
He supposed that it was the voice of the disconso- 
late Polar Bear. 

" He must be dredf 'lly misrubble to make a noise 
like that," he thought, his heart full of pity; and 
he hastened on to try to comfort the lonely crea- 
ture. 

The sight that met his eyes as he turned the 

corner was one that he never forgot. A vast herd 

of animals, something the shape of seals, but nearly 

twice as large, tumbled over each other at the edge 

of the shore, a tossing mass of huge black bodies 

and gleaming tusks. The sea seemed full of them, 

and each, as he landed, flapped heavily down just 

where he was, while the next behind him snorted 

146 



Lord of the Snows 

and progged his back to make him stir. And all 
the while the same deep roaring that Phil had 
heard went on unceasingly; it was almost enough 
to deafen him. 

"Why don't they move on?" he demanded of 
the creature nearest to him, whose small but bril- 
liant eyes regarded him with a puzzled stare. 

"Why should they move on?" she answered. 
"They are quite comfortable where they are." 

When the roaring ceased, as it did presently, 
Phil tried to show them that if they came a little 
further inland there would be room for all. 

"I s'pose you're Walruses," he added. "I've 
seen your picture. My book at home said you were 
very brave, but I don't think Father Beaver would 
say that you used your wits." 

A fine old Walrus who had pushed his way 
through the rest to Phil gave a loud bellow of 
approval. 

"That's what I tell them," he cried, "but they 
don't heed me. It's laziness — pure laziness. They 
147 



In Nature s School 

would rather lie where they are and be trodden on, 
than move on a bit and have plenty of room to 
spare." 

The roaring began again, as if to drown his 
voice, but the old Walrus held his ground. 

"It's true," he said. "It took me years to per- 
suade them that two-legged beings were dangerous. 
They would just stand still and stare at their 
bright spears or fire sticks until they were woun- 
ded to death, and helpless, the foolish children!" 

It amused Phil to hear the great black creatures 
called "children " — they looked to him more like 
very fat old men, and their prominent muzzles 
gave them an air of fierceness that was quite ab- 
sent in the seals. 

" Yes, we can fight when we are put to it," said 
the old Walrus proudly, as Phil remarked this, 
"and now that I have made my people heed what 
I tell them, if we are surprised on land, and our 
retreat cut off^, we throw ourselves against the 
invaders and overpower them, so that we may 

148 



Lord of the Snows 

scramble back into the sea. If they attack our 
young, so much the worse for them. For when 
we are fully roused, no bear will fight more 
desperately than we." 

Now that Phil had grown used to the sight of 
so many Walruses together, he could see that the 
smaller ones kept very closely to their mothers' 
sides. The old Walrus pointed out how short their 
tusks were in comparison with his own, which 
were quite two feet in length. 

" Like the mother seals," he said, "our females 

land so that they may have their young on shore. 

These are born in the winter, and at first are only 

the size of year-old pigs. They are a great care to 

their mothers, who swim about with them between 

their forefeet until they are old enough to take 

care of themselves. If a mother walrus scents 

danger when she is on the ice field, she makes her 

baby jump on her back, and carries it off^ to the 

open sea, or to one of our ice-holes. What are 

'ice-holes'? Why, holes in the ice, of course. We, 
149 



In Nature s School 

and the seals as well, make many of these on the 
ice fields, so that if we are pursued by an enemy 
we can jump through them and escape under 
water. We live on sea-weed — there is a certain 
kind of which we are particularly fond — and fish, 
and — yes — young seals! They are very tender at 
certain times of the year." 

Phil hoped he would not take it into his head 
to explore the coast line further until all the 
Harp Seals were safely off to sea. He had learnt 
from the seagulls that many other kinds of seal 
lived on these shores, but he was only anxious about 
the ones he knew. 

" I 'm glad those dear beavers of mine never kill 
things," he said to himself. "They were more 
clever than any creatures I have met yet, and not 
even Bruno was half so nice." 

The thought of Bruno reminded him of the 

Polar Bear. The old Walrus did not seem to care 

for the mention of his name any more than the 

seals had done. 

150 



Lord of the Snows 

"Look at this scar," he said, turning his neck 
so that Phil could see the marks of a jagged 
wound but lately healed. '' I was dozing on the 
ice field not far from one of those holes I told you 
of, when suddenly I caught a pungent scent — the 
scent of a bear, and between me and the ice-hole 
was a big " Nennook," as Polar Bears are called 
up here. He had reached me by swimming under 
the ice, coming up to breathe at each ice-hole, and 
approaching so silently that not even the seagulls 
had noticed him. With one great bound he fixed 
his claws into my neck; I snapped at his muzzle 
and dug my tusks through his hoary fur. They 
must have pierced some tender part, for he fell 
back from me with a cry of rage. Some of our 
herd rushed forward then to help me, and the 
Nennook thought better of killing me fior his 
supper, and dashed back through the ice-hole. I 
shall bear his marks to my dying day." 

"Was that the bear that the Owl called 'Lord 
of the Snows'?" 
151 



In Nature s School 

"No, indeed," said the Walrus, and a shudder 
passed through his great sides. " Had it been he, I 
should not have escaped. Even the Greenlanders, 
w^ith the cunning w^eapons they have made with 
their own hands, and the fire sticks, more deadly- 
still, which travellers bring from a distant land, 
shun the 'Lord of the Snows,' and dread his 
vengeance." 

"Yet the Snowy Owl told me that they had 
captured his cub and killed his mate. Were they 
not afraid ? " 

" They were many in number, and he was away, 
or they would not have ventured near. His mate, 
though not so large, was as fierce as he, and 
wounded several of them before they could take 
her cub. As she fell backward, shot through the 
heart, they saw the 'Lord of the Snows' coming 
towards them over the ice field, and fled for their 
lives. They had no chance of taking either skins 
or bear flesh, so it did not do them much good." 

"And the 'Lord of the Snows'?" 

. 152 



hord of the Snows 

The old Walrus polished his splendid tusks on 
a strand of seaweed before heanswered.Then: " He 
watches alone," he said. 

For some hours longer Phil lingered beside the 
Walrus herd, wondering anew at their strange 
shapes and stranger antics; he did not in the least 
wish to play with them. They were, however, very 
gentle towards their young — all animals were that, 
he thought; but the old males were scarred, as if 
from many battles. 

"We fight for our mates," the Walrus said; 
"and sometimes I think it is more than they 're 
worth." 

Six or seven indignant lady walruses, wives of 
his own, flew to his side at this. In the midst of 
their uproar a beautiful sea-bird with gleaming 
wings flew over PhiFs head in narrowing circles 
until she alighted at his feet. 

"Is it the 'Lord of the Snows' you seek?" she 
asked him; and in spite of the roaring and snorting 
of the herd her notes came sweet and clear. " You 
^53 



In Nature s School 

will find him far up the coast line, where the 
glacier crests are sharpest, and the snow is frozen 
still." 

Phil did not try to say "good-bye" to the Wal- 
ruses, for they would not have heard him. He 
slipped away quietly, and followed a pathway the 
sea-bird showed him over the polished ice. To his 
great amazement he noticed that under his feet was 
a soft thick covering of hair; that was the reason, 
then, why he had not felt the sharp rocks on the 
shore. He was still marvelling at this discovery 
when he came upon the Polar Bear. 

Lying outstretched upon a crag of rock, his 
silvery fur tossed by the wind, and his slender head 
turned towards the sea, was the "Lord of the 
Snows." His red-rimmed eyes shot sombre fire, but 
as Phil came nearer he made no sign. It was Nature's 
child, he knew, and he had promised to welcome 
him; but surely not now, when his heart was torn, 
and his rage still burning. It was too much to ask. So 
he waited in moody silence, while twilight fell on 

154 



Lord of the Snows 

the glaciers, and the wind blew chill. Phil shivered 
a little; the great bear looked at him with a start. 

"Are you cold ? " he growled. 

"Yes — cold, and lonely, too," said Phil, making 
the one appeal that the Nennook could understand 
just then. 

With a queer little sound of pity he drew Phil 
down to him. 

"Lie here between my forepaws," he said in a 
gentle voice, " and I will keep you warm." 

All the night through Phil slept with him. 
When he awoke he was as warm as toast, for he had 
grown a coat of bear skin! 

It was lovely fur — -soft and thick as the velvet 
moss in the woods at home. The "Lord of the 
Snows" smiled at Phil's delight, and hugged him 
close to his shaggy side. 

"Nature has given you that," he said, "so that 
you may journey in comfort over the ice with me. 
Come, my little one; we will go to the shore. The 
past is past, and the sunlight calls us.'' He shook 
155 



In Nature s School 

his great body, and with one last look in the direc- 
tion of the rocky den where all through the winter 
his mate had slept, shut in by the snow, and had 
nursed his cub, he turned his face to the sea, and 
started off at a quick gallop. 

Phil kept pace with him easily. When they 
reached the sea he plunged in after him, and swam 
with the same long strokes. The ice-cold waves 
dashed over his head and did not hurt him; the 
ocean teemed with life, and opal-hued fish darted 
away before them in every diredlion. Oh, it was 
splendid — splendid, to swim like this; he should 
never tire. 

" Is it well with you, little one? " the " Lord of 
the Snows" would ask, ceasing his quick strokes 
for a moment that he might see the boy's glad 
face. 

" It is well, O Nennook," Phil would reply, and 
the bear would dive deep, breasting the top of 
the waves again with a shimmering fish in his 
strong jaw. 

156 



Lord of the Snows 

At night they rested on floating icebergs, and 
Phil tucked his fur-capped head under the great 
bear's chin, and watched the stars twinkHng as he 
had done in the land of the beavers. 

"They will have felled all the wood they can use 
by this time," he said one night with a sigh. And the 
Nennook, who had heard of them from the night 
wind (she it is who tells all their secrets), was 
smitten with fear lest Phil should want to return to 
the fair green woods where time had passed for 
him so happily. Phil's eyes grew very wistful in the 
darkness as the bear besought him not to leave him. 
He was trying to put into words some of the things 
that Nature had told him, and he could not find the 
right ones. 

" I don't think I shall ever go back to my 
beavers, Nennook," he said at last. " There is much, 
Father Beaver told me, that Nature wants me to 
see. In a little while, perhaps, the night wind will 
take me to some warm land, very far away. I saw 
it last night in my dreams. It was very beautiful." 
157 



In Nature s School 

But it was not yet that the night wind called 
him, and for many days and nights to come he 
stayed with the "Lord of the Snows." The great 
block of ice that they had chosen to rest on was 
floating southward quickly, and since they were 
now a long way off from Greenland's shores, the 
Nennook decided not to return to his lonely cave. 

"This iceberg will bear us to other countries,'* 
he said, "where perhaps Reindeer will be plenti- 
ful. I long to chase them over the snow; the taste 
of their flesh is very good." 

Meanwhile he fed entirely on fish, and very 
clever he was at catching it. Every kind came alike 
to him, and he, like the mother Porcupine and the 
Musquaws, was puzzled to find that Phil was never 
hungry. 

"It's not a bit more wonderful than that I should 
have grown a coat of fur," laughed Phil, who was 
glad that he had not to eat raw fish. 

One day, when he was curled up close to the bear 
on the floating iceberg, Phil saw what he imagined 

158 



"•^^^m^ 



f^> 



r ^' 




It's a Greenland Whale 



I^ord of the Snows 

to be an island about seventy feet long, and half as 
wide across, coming up to the surface of the sea 
from the depths below. It was velvety black in 
colour, with a tinge of grey towards one end. As 
Phil stared at it in surprise, a tall column of water 
rose suddenly to a great height, accompanied by a 
snorting sound that was most peculiar. 

" What a wonderful island ! " he said ; and for the 
first time since Phil had known him the Nennook 
burst into a merry roar. 

" It's a Greenland Whale," he cried, giving Phil 
an affectionate hug that he might not be hurt at 
his laughter. "To me she's the most wonderful 
creature in the north seas, and as gentle and 
affectionate as a lamb. She lives in the very depths 
of the ocean, but she has to come up to the sur- 
face every quarter of an hour or so to breathe, 
when she 'spouts' up the water through her 
nostrils, or blow-holes, as she is doing now, some 
eight or nine times running. She won't go down 
again for about ten minutes. Slip round in front 
159 



In Nature s School 

of her and look in her mouth. In spite of its im- 
mense size, her gullet is only two inches across, 
and it is but the smallest fish that she can eat. To 
get enough of these she rushes through shoals of 
them with her mouth wide open, and millions are 
caught in the 'baleen' or whalebone plates at the 
side of her jaws. When she thinks she has enough, 
she closes her mouth, and squeezes out the water 
she has taken in with the fish through the fringed 
ends of the whalebone." 

Swimming in front of her as he was directed, 
Phil looked right into her enormous mouth, which 
was ten or twelve feet high, and large enough to 
engulf the little rose-covered cottage in which 
he had lived with his mother. The North Sea 
Whale closed the vast cavity with a snap, and 
spouted out more water. Phil, like the Nennook, 
thought her the most marvellous creature in the 
whole world. 

As she sank back to the depths of the sea, the 
Nennook told him more about her; how the oil 

1 60 



Lord of the Snows 

and whalebone, and the delicate "blubber" that 
was really her third skin, are so valued by man that 
whales are continually chased and killed, 

"Their little ones are as dear to the whales as 
ours are to us," he said, "and when these are 
attacked the mothers become reckless, and are 
easily lured within reach of the cruel harpoons. 
Once I saw a whale dash a large boat to atoms by 
a single blow of her tail; but her young one was 
killed by that time, so it did not help her." 

The Nennook that night tossed restlessly; the 
iceberg was nearing the shore, and he longed 
to feel the land under his feet again. As for Phil, 
he had gone with the night wind, and the Nen- 
nook saw him no more. 



i6[ 




Chapter the Ninth 

A Fragrant Land 
KIES with no clouds to dim them; 
gay-plumaged birds and brilHant 
butterflies, flitting, like living gems, 
amongst the snow-white flowers 
and coral berries of the coff^ee plant; 
these met Phil's eyes on his first morning in Arabia. 
He was on the slope of a broadly terraced hill, 
in the midst of a coffee plantation, where the deli- 
cate green of the young leaves rose high above. 
Gone was his thick fur coat, and the soles of his 
little bare feet were smooth again. It was as warm 
here as it had been cold on the ice fields; an exqui- 
site butterfly, her jewel-like body poised lightly 
between two splendid wings of orange red, spotted 

and tipped with black, fluttered on a wave of heat. 

162 



A Fragrant Land 

"Come up to the heights/' she murmured, 
"and you shall see the daintiest little creature 
that ever trod the earth; a blade of grass would 
scarcely bend beneath her feet. Well was she 
named the Ariel.'' 

She darted away in front of him, and Phil 
followed her idly. Where all things were so 
beautiful what did it matter at which he looked? 
The rapturous song of the sweet-voiced birds, and 
the fragrance of the warm air, made him dreamy 
with delight as he passed through the plantation, 
where a thousand streams from the great reservoir 
the Arabs had built above it rippled gently be- 
tween its groves. Soft little breezes helped him 
along, and he climbed the heights without an 
effort. Ring-doves cooed him their familiar wel- 
come from the spreading acacias which shaded 
his pathway; the grass was thick, and of a deep 
rich green; his feet sank into it as if it were a 
velvet carpet. The butterfly stayed her flight over 
a strange plant with smooth dark leaves. 

163 L2 



In Nature s School 

" Look at it well," she murmured. " This is the 
Catha, or Kat plant, and its buds and leaves, when 
steeped in water, make the Arab forget his troubles. 
And this" — she left the Catha, and flew to a 
spreading balsam — "is where they find the myrrh 
that the wise men brought from the East, with 
gold and frankincense. Myrrh is the gum from 
the bark of the balsam, and Arabia has always been 
famed for its fragrant essences and spices." 

Phil rested awhile under the spacious branches, 
for he wanted also to hear about the coffee plant, 
and he knew by this time that the smallest creature 
might have something to teach him. 

"Arabia was its first home," said the butterfly, 
turningherslender antenna in his dire6fion."Kaifa, 
whose name it bears still, is the place in which it 
was discovered, but no one thought of growing 
it in large quantities until the Arabs did so. Now 
it is cultivated in many regions of the world, and 
only a very small part of the coffee you drink 
really comes from Arabia. It is a lovely plant, for 

164 



A Fragrant Land 

it is never out of season, and blossoms all the year 
round. The Thorny-tailed Lizard says that it will 
go on bearing fruit for 'a quarter of a century,' 
and that it grows to a height of forty feet." 

"I s'pose you mean that it lives for twenty- 
five years," said Phil, rather proud of knowing 
what a century meant. " That 's not so long. I used 
to swing in an oak tree once that mother told me 
was at least two hundred years old." 

"It is longer than I can understand," said the 
butterfly quietly, "for my short life is nearly over. 
I love the flowers and the sunshine, and the soft 
winds; but my wings are tired." 

She fluttered them daintily over a starry blos- 
som of palest gold, and the minute, exquisitely- 
shaped scales that gave them their beauty caught 
every hue of the sunlight. Her long proboscis, 
through the hollow of which she drew out the 
sweetness from honey-bearing flowers, was as fine 
and delicate as a thread of glistening spun glass, 
and Phil thought her the Queen of butterflies. 

165 



In Nature s School 

"Can you remember before you had wings?" 
he asked, looking at her with half-closed eyes as 
she poised herself over a flower. 

The butterfly laughed softly — it was like the 
rustling of rose leaves — and her antennas quivered. 

"I remember all," she cried, "from the time 
that I was a tiny caterpillar, creeping out of my 
wee round egg, which was just the colour of the 
leaf on which my mother laid it. I was a crawling, 
worm-like little creature then, with sixteen short 
legs and a hairy body, and such a big appetite that 
I set to work at once to eat my way through the 
edge of a leaf with my strong mandibles. I had 
three simple eyes on either side of my head, very 
diff'erent from the large ones, composed of numer- 
ous facets, which I have now. I needed those eyes, 
every one of them; for birds and bats, and dragon 
flies and spiders, were all on the look out for me, 
as they are to-day. But now I can fly away from 
them; then, I could only crawl." 

" How did you change into a butterfly? " 

i66 



A Fragrant Land 

" I cannot tell you. But when I had lived some 
weeks in the sunshine, and the soft rain that chris- 
tened me had driven me many times for shelter 
under the spreading leaves, I began to grow weary 
of being a caterpillar. So I clung to a little twig of 
the coffee plant, and spun myself a tiny house in 
which no one could see me, where I might lie in 
peace. (I was glad to be able to do this, for I heard 
that most butterflies had to content themselves by 
winding a thread or two of silk round their bodies, 
to keep them suspended to a leaf.) A 'chrysalis' 
they called me then, I believe, but I only know 
that I was very drowsy and did not care to eat any 
more, or crawl in the sun. Each time that the wind 
rustled through the bushes it rocked my house, and 
presently I fell asleep. 

"I woke one day to find my body tingling with 

life. Something had happened, and I struggled to 

free myself from my case of skin, which was all that 

was left now of my chrysalis. Then I ate my way 

through the thin ' cocoon,' and reached the 
167 



In Nature s School 

air. ... I was a butterfly — a real butterfly, and as 
lovely now as I had been ugly before. . . . For a little 
while I sat in the sun and dried my wings, for they 
were moist and crumpled. Then I shook them out, 
and was ready to fly." 

A sudden swoop from the branches of a balsam, 
and a tiny blue bird nearly put an end to the but- 
terfly's life that instant. Phil rose to his feet, and a 
quaint little monkey, rollicking amongst the 
acacias, threw a leafy pellet at his yellow head. 
While Phil was wondering where this came from, 
both bird and butterfly disappeared. 

So Phil resumed his way up the heights alone. 
The spreading trees gave place to stunted box- 
wood, and the grass that had been so pleasant to 
walk on was dry and withered now. It did not seem 
as if any creature could live there, and the rocks 
were almost as desolate as the Greenland snows. A 
sudden twist in the rugged pathway brought him 
to the edge of a chasm. Here he could see Arabia 

stretched out before him — its fertile slopes and 

i68 




Don't you know me ? 



A Fragrant Land 

grassy plains, and the sands of the desert burning 
yellow in the sun. 

A shrill and prolonged whistle broke the silence 
as Phil looked down. Turning quickly, he saw ten 
goat-like animals, their strong curved horns marked 
with transverse ridges, standing some distance off, 
alert and watchful. The whistle was repeated by 
their leader, evidently an old male, and almost as 
quickly as the seals had leapt to their ice islands, 
they sprang to the highest points of rock and stood 
at bay. 

Phil made a speaking trumpet of his hands. 

"Don't you know me? '' he called. "I'm Phil! " 

Their leader whistled again, and this time the 
sound was one of reassurance. Springing from point 
to point with marvellous ease, the others formed 
in line in front of him, their quivering sides show- 
ing their natural fear of a stranger, in spite of their 
bold front. Their coats were reddish brown; a dark 
stripe passed straight up their faces and down to the 

end of their spines, and the fur underneath their 
169 



In Nature s School 

bodies was a soft pale grey. Strength and endur- 
ance spoke from their every look; they were brave 
creatures, Phil was sure. 

Advancing quickly, their leader butted at Phil in 
a friendly fashion, and introduced himself as an Ibex. 

"We are all glad to see you," he added. "You 
will forgive us for having waited to make sure that 
you were a friend. Anything two-legged we fear, 
for we have learnt from experience that men are 
dangerous. If they meet us on our own ground, we 
turn at bay, and try to dash them from the rocks 
on which they stand. But they do not often give us 
the chance of doing this." 

" You are so fleet," said Phil, " that I should have 
thought you would be sure to escape." 

" Ah ! " said the Ibex with a mournful toss of his 
horns, " the hunters don't play fair. When we have 
gained the loftiest crags, which even the boldest 
climber could not reach, they point a thing of wood 
at us, which shoots out fire; and so we die. You see 

that group of Ibexes on the opposite height? There 

170 



A Fragrant Land 

are only seven of them there, you'll notice; there 
were ten yesterday." 

"Then are there ten Ibexes in every troop? " 

"Five or ten. These are our favourite numbers; 
I cannot tell you why, but so it has always been. 
Each troop is under a leader, and his lightest com- 
mand is obeyed instantly. A second's hesitation, and 
our enemies might sight us." 

"It must be hard to obey as quickly as that," 
remarked Phil thoughtfully. At home, and even at 
the Orphanage, as he explained to the Ibex, before 
he did what they told him he always wanted to 
know "just why." 

"That wouldn't do here," was the reply. "An 
Ibex who did not obey instantly would be turned 
out of the troop. The Wild Ass, whom I see yonder, 
is as strict as we are about obedience, and I have 
heard that the splendid tribe of deer called the 
' Wapiti ' instantly trample a rebel to death." 

The Wild Ass joined them as the Ibex spoke, 
and Phil was astonished to find him such a lordly 
171 



In Nature s School 

beast. His eyes were full and mild, but sparkling 
with life, and his shapely body covered with sleek 
dark hair. His finely-cut nostrils dilated with each 
breath he drew. 

"Is it true," he demanded of Phil, as the Ibex 
leapt to another crag, " that in the land from which 
you come we are but beasts of burden, our very 
name a mark of scorn? " 

Phil blushed. He was thinking how often he 
himself had been called "as stupid as an ass," and 
of the poor draggled donkey who brought firewood 
to the Orphanage. Very shaggy and thin was he, 
and pitiful of mien. The splendid Wild Ass before 
him might have come from another world. 

"The donkeys I knew in England did not look 

a bit like you," he said, "and they really ^r^ stupid. 

When you want them to go quickly, they usually 

stand quite still and stare at you. The one in our 

village used to lie down in the dust when the tinker 

tried to make him hurry." 

The Wild Ass stamped his foot. 

172 



A Fragrant Land 

"Ah," he cried, "the poor brute has been half- 
starved and ill-treated until his spirit is broken, and 
his keen intelligence dulled. That is the way, they 
tell me, with all my kindred within your shores. 
Their patient service counts for nothing, and kicks 
and blows are ever their portion. 

"The Arabs put you to shame," he went on 
sternly, looking away to the distant plains. " Their 
beasts are their companions and trusted friends; an 
Arab would disown a man who abused his camel, 
even were he his brother, and his horses and his 
asses are famous all over the world." 

He cantered away as if he could not trust himself 
to say more. His hoofs rang out on the rocky path, 
and a startled Eagle looked down from his eyrie 
with longing eyes at the slender form of a Gazelle, 
just then appearing round a point of rock. 

Treading as lightly as though she walked on air, 
as the Butterfly had said, she came to meet Phil 
trustfully. Her height at the shoulder was less than 
two feet, and her tiny body, covered with fawn 
173 



In Nature s School 

coloured fur, tinted a rich dark brown, was a model 
of grace. 

"Have you seen 'Lightfoot'? " she asked him 
anxiously. "I have sought him since early morning. 
He left me at dawn, and has not yet returned. He 
has never been away so long before." 

Phil patted her gently. 

" Perhaps he has gone further than he intended," 
he said, consolingly. " Won't you show me where 
you live?" 

The Ariel gave a wistful glance at the heights 
beyond ; then moved on lightly in front of Phil until 
she came to a flat tableland beside a stream. A baby 
Ariel bounded from a cleft in the rocks, and laying 
her dainty head against him, waited for his caresses. 

"It is here that 'Lightfoot' brought me when first 
we mated," her mother said, "and in spite of many 
dangers we have dwelt in safety." 

"Dangers?" asked Phil. 

The Ariel lifted her head and scanned the far- 
off horizon. 

174 



A Fragrant Land 

"Though the Arabs sometimes make pets of us, 
and treat us then like their own children, they 
hunt us mercilessly; for 'sport,' as well as for our 
tender flesh, and the value of our hides. 

"Sometimes they trap us by means of a large en- 
closure, which they build near one of the streams 
or fountains where we go to drink at eve. Our sen- 
tinels are always on the watch, but the Arabs steal 
up so silently that even our keen eyes and scent are 
now and then at fault. If this should happen the 
Arabs surround us, and drive us into the 
enclosure. 

"It is terrible then, for we are trapped, and can 
only escape by leaping through the gaps they have 
left in the rough stone walls. Each gap opens on to 
a deep pit, or trench, into which we fall, and are 
killed by hundreds. We know when we leap what 
is awaiting us; but with the shouts of the hunters 
ringing in our ears we are terrified out of our wits, 
and it is better to die like that than to stay and 
be killed in the enclosure. The Arabs have another 
175 



In Nature s School 

way of catching us; but I don't want to think of 
that until 'Lightfoot' is safely home." 

An Ariel rather darker in colour, and with finer 
horns, came towards them now. It was"Quick-as- 
the-wind,"the chief of the herd, and he too seemed 
disturbed at " Lightfoot's" prolonged absence. 

" It is not like him to stay from your side so long," 
he said to the little mother. Then, as if anxious to 
divert her mind, he turned to Phil. 

"Shall we show you," he said, "how we keep 
the Wild Cat at bay should he seek his supper 
amidst our herd ? We are so frail that if we did 
not a(5l together we should be entirely at the mercy 
of any enemy who chose to attack us." 

With a sound that in spite of its softness could 
be heard a great way off, " Quick-as-the-wind " 
moved into the open space. In a moment the 
crags around were alive with Ariels. 

More like a flock of gentle birds than a herd of 
animals, they gathered swiftly together into a 
circle. The does and young ones were placed with 

176 



A Fragrant Land 

Phil within its centre, while the old males, in a 
dense mass outside them, bent their heads forward 
at a sharp angle until their horns formed a row of 
pointed weapons which any small animal would 
hesitate to face. " Quick-as-the-wind " stamped his 
tiny foot, and the circle dissolved, to form again 
just as quickly at his next signal. 

"All gazelles defend themselves from their foes 
in this manner," he said, when the disbanded 
Ariels were munching the soft grass, " and some 
of the larger species can successfully keep at bay a 
hungry jackal. I have been told that it was from 
watching our method of fighting that Man in 
olden times first thought of forming soldiers into 
the military ' square,' with bayonets fixed to meet 
the enemy." 

He broke off abruptly, for the Ariel sentinels 
on the heights had sounded a warning; faintly on 
the breeze came the sharp baying of dogs. The 
Ariels vanished; "Quick-as-the-wind" was but a 
flying shadow on the mountain side. 

177 M 



In Nature s School 

Nearer came the baying of the dogs. Phil could 
see now that they were powerful greyhounds. 
The hunters who rode after them bore keen-eyed 
falcons on their wrists. Released from their jesses, 
these quickly out-distanced the panting grey- 
hounds, and, dropping down on the bewildered 
Ariels' heads, flapped their great wings in their 
faces until the little things fell to the ground with 
fright and exhaustion. A moment later the grey- 
hounds came up, gasping for breath; their bared 
teeth gleamed, and their long red tongues were 

already tasting blood There was no hope 

now for the gentle creatures that Phil in one short 
hour had grown to love. 

He put his fingers in his ears, and hid his face 

on his arms. When he lifted it, a long while after, 

there was silence again on the mountain side. As 

quickly as he could he made his way down the 

rocky pathway, and passed through the plantation 

of coffee plants without a thought now for their 

beauty. For his heart was sore. 

178 



Chapter the Tenth 




'Ships of the Desert:' 
WONDER where I shall find a 
camel," said Phil to himself. Not 
even the Arab horses, far-famed 
and lovely as they were, could for 
him compare in interest with the 
"ships of the desert," without whose aid. Nature 
had told him, the burning sands would be more 
impassable than traftless seas. He had seen a 
camel once in a travelling menagerie; a depressed 
and shaggy camel, with dim, lack-lustre eyes and 
a rough coat. He wondered if the camels in Arabia 
would look like that. 

There was no breeze now, and the thin blue 
smoke that rose above the chimneys of the distant 
houses hung lazily in the sky. Phil had walked far 

179 M2 



In Nature s School 

since he left the mountain, and although a tawny 
butterfly with an oblique white bar across the tip 
of her f orewings had stayed her flight in passing, it 
had only been to wish him a pleasant journey. The 
sands of the desert plains stretched far to left and 
right in the broiling sunshine, looking like trafts 
of gold. Phil's eyes were dazzled by the glare; 
he sought the shade of a palm tree and leant against 
its slender trunk. 

Presently he became aware that something was 
watching him from a sandy bank not far away. It 
was a Lizard — ^surely the queerest lizard that 
Nature had ever made. His body was covered with 
shining scales, like those of most of his kindred, but 
his fat tail, ringed with thorn-like spines, was very 
curious, and his big teeth, set far apart in his funny 
mouth, were too large for his small round head. 

He gazed at Phil in quizzical amusement, and 
asked him what he wanted in Arabia. 

"To see a camel," Phil replied, and the Lizard 
gave a dry little chuckle. 

i8o 



^hips of the Desert 

"You will have to go down to the plains for 
that," he said, "and the wind will blow the sand 
into your eyes. Better stay here with me. The shade 
is pleasant, and dates are sweet." 

Phil shook his head. 

" I have come a long way to see the camel," he 
persisted. " Have I far to go before I shall find 
him?" 

The Thorny-tailed Lizard — -for this was he- 
blinked several times before he spoke again. 

"Not far for you," he said at last, "for Nature 
has given you invisible wings to your feet. Before 
you go have a look at my burrow. It is a simple 
little affair, but very comfortable, and when I tuck 
my head and body inside it I am quite safe. If the 
Arabs, who find me as dainty eating as they do 
locusts, try to pull me out by my tail, it comes off 
in their hands, and I grow another. He ! he ! he ! " 

The Lizard was quite a charafter in his way, 
and Phil spent a pleasant half-hour with him. His 
burrow, though only a deep long hole in the sand- 



i8i 



In Natures School 

bank, was very cosy, and Mrs Thorny-tail was 
most intelligent. She had a great deal to say to Phil 
about a demure red locust who showed some in- 
clination to bite him as he bade her farewell at 
the entrance to the burrow. 

"He belongs to the same family as the grass- 
hoppers,'' she remarked, as, much discomfited at 
what she said to him, the locust flew away. "But 
instead of leaping through the air as they do, he uses 
his strong wings, which carry him very far." 

"He scarcely looks large enough to do all the 
harm they say," said Phil, who had heard of him 
from the butterfly. " I should have thought him 
quite a harmless creature if I had not known." 

"A swarm of his family can make a green land 
desolate," returned the Lizard. "Small things can 
do much mischief, as you will learn when you grow 
older. There is nothing safe from locusts. They have 
even been known in the Strait of Ormuz to settle 
on a ship, and, by devouring the sails and cordage, 
oblige the captain to stay his course. What? You 



I«2 



Ships of the Desert 

are still thinking about your camels? Well, ask for 
' Maherry ' when you reach the Arabs' dwellings. 
He is the fleetest Heirie in Arabia." 

"Is a 'Heirie' the same as a camel?" Phil in- 
quired. But the Thorny-tailed Lizard had already 
tucked her head into her burrow, and soon was lost 
to sight. 

A Weaver-Bird fluttered from the palm tree in 
a state of wild alarm. 

"There's a viper under that stone," she cried. 
"Do send him off. He makes my heart beat so that 
I can scarcely hear myself twitter." 

Phil turned it over, and a snake wriggled away 
as if he had no wish that Phil should see his face. 
The Weaver-Bird thanked Phil with many words. 

"He has been watching me all the morning," she 
said, "with those dreadful eyes of his. I am thank- 
ful that he has gone, though my young ones have 
flown now, and my mind is at peace. Won't you 
stay and look at my nest? We made it all ourselves, 
I and my mate, and it is quite worth seeing." 

183 



In Nature s School 

It hung from a fairly high branch, and could 
only bereached by means of a long narrow entrance, 
most elaborately woven of grass and twigs, some- 
what in the shape of an old-fashioned netted purse. 
This, she told him, was to keep away poisonous 
snakes and mischievous monkeys, who would 
otherwise have helped themselves to her eggs, or 
feasted upon her fledglings. 

"We had to keep a sharp look out, their father 
and I," she added, putting her small black head 
pensively on one side as she thought of the troubles 
of married life, "for birds have many enemies here. 
Sometimes we hang our nests from the boughs of 
trees on the bank of a stream or river, but then 
there are water rats as well as snakes, and it is 
wonderful how far they can jump." 

And on she chattered, giving Phil her history 

from the day of her birth, and confiding to him 

how grieved her mate had been in spring because 

he could not sing. 

" But when we began to build our nest,'* she 

184 



i 



Ships of the Desert 

went on happily, "he was too busy to think about 
such nonsense, and there is no good in crying for 
what you cannot have! If you will wait a little 
while you will see him. Are you going far? — ' To 
find Maherry ? ' Why, you are almost there. Just go 
straight on until you come to a house with a white 
mark over the lintel. He lives in the shed beside 
it." 

Following her directions, Phil steered his course 
by the blue smoke that he had seen in the distance, 
and presently found the house that she had de- 
scribed. It was roughly built and very old; it looked 
as if it had been there for centuries. The door of the 
shed was open, and Phil slipped quietly in. A slender 
camel, resting on the ground in a kneeling position, 
looked solemnly up at him from beneath his long 
thick lashes, and waited for him to speak. 

"Are you Maherry?" he said, touching the 
reddish-grey coat that for all its thickness was as 
soft as silk. 

" I am Maherry," the camel answered, stirring a 
i8s 



In Nature s School 

little so that Phil might find room beside him on 
his couch of date leaves. " I have just come a long 
journey across the desert, and my limbs are weary, 
or I would rise." 

"Why do they call you the 'Heirie'? You look 
just like the one-humped camel I saw in my pi6ture 
book, and he was a Dromedary." 

Maherry raised his head. 

" I am sometimes called that too. Dromedaries 
or 'Heiries' are one and the same animal. Heiries 
are more slenderly built and far more fleet than or- 
dinary camels, whether they are one-humped and 
Arabian, or Baftrian, with two humps. To an Arab 
' Fleet as the Heirie' means 'fleet as the wind.' We 
are the camels of Oman, and can travel through 
the desert without stopping for several days and 
nights. Thus we reach the end of our journeys 
quickly, and our masters cry: ' It is well! ' In days 
of old the Arabs said: 'When thou shalt meet a 
Heirie and say to the rider " Peace be between us," 
ere he shall have answered "There is peace between 

i86 



Ships of the Desert 

us," he will be far off, for his swiftness is like the 
wind/ " 

" Are they kind to you, these masters of yours, 
Maherry?" 

The Heirie laughed softly. 

"Ay," he said, "or we should not serve them 
half so well. The service of love is swifter than the 
service of fear; the Turks, who treat their camels 
more as you do the Ass in England, find them 
neither so willing nor so tradable, though all camels 
are by nature patient, and strong to endure. Here 
in Arabia a young camel is fondled as if it were a 
baby. ' A child is born to us,' cry our master's family ; 
and silver charms are hung on our heads and about 
our necks, while we are encouraged to take our 
first steps by music and song." 

The Heirie paused. The tinkling of bells came 
softly through the open door, and Phil, looking 
eagerly round it, saw a long procession of camels 
wending its way through the town. They were 
heavily laden, and trod as if they were very tired. 

187 



In Nature s School 

As they reached an open space behind the market 
their masters called a halt. 

" It is four o'clock, and the end of one stage of 
their journey," said Maherry. '' Go you and watch 
them; and do not give too much heed if they dis- 
pute with each other when they are unloaded. It 
is the end of the day, and their burdens were heavy. " 

Phil drew the door of the Heirie's shed quickly 
behind him, and hastened through the market 
place, where another time he would have wished 
to linger. Pink and white sweetmeats were spread 
out temptingly; luscious black figs, and grapes and 
peaches covered the low stalls; sweet-smelling 
spices and aromatic herbs made the air fragrant, 
and dark-skinned Arabs showed weapons and orna- 
ments, cunningly wrought in precious metals. But 
it was only the camels Phil wanted to see just then, 
and he did not stop until he had reached them. 

They were much larger than the Heirie; most 

of them were brown, but some light grey, and one, 

who bore the heaviest load of all, a snowy white. 

i83 



Ships of the Desert 

His master called him "Aleppo," and chided him 
gently for his weariness. Phil made himself known 
to him as he knelt to be unloaded, throwing the 
weight of his body on the thick elastic pads that 
Nature had given him on his broad chest and on 
each elbow and knee of his fore-limbs. These elastic 
cushions, Phil saw, were on the front of his hind 
knees too, and smaller ones upon his hocks. 

"This is so that in kneeling, our natural posi- 
tion of rest, wherever the weight of our bodies is 
thrown, our shins are protefted," said Aleppo. 
"I am hungry and thirsty now, but presently we 
will talk." 

The unloading of the Camels took some time. 

As they were released from their burdens they rose 

to their feet again, and the way in which some of 

them scufHed and kicked their neighbours reminded 

Phil of Maherry's words. It was strange to see 

them wrestling together, now and then giving 

each other an apparently savage bite, and Phil was 

glad when the Arabs brought them their evening 
189 



In Nature s School 

meal — date leaves and thorny shrubs, with leaves 
and branches of the tamarisk tree, and some dry- 
black beans that looked as hard as stones. But the 
camels, kneeling round the baggage, scrunched 
them thankfully, their strong teeth making this 
an easy matter, and drew in leaves and branches 
with their cleft lips. Ere long Aleppo, declar- 
ing himself refreshed, suggested that Phil should 
come close beside him, so that they could talk 
more easily. 

As Phil leant comfortably against his hump he 
was struck with its ungainliness, and asked: 

" Don't you wish you hadn't a hump, Aleppo?" 

Aleppo nearly upset him by the sudden start 
he gave. 

"Why, my hump is my greatest treasure," he 

replied. " But for that, I should have often dropped 

from starvation when provisions ran short in the 

desert. When a camel once falls it seldom rises 

to its feet again, and the Vultures claim it as their 

own. The first thing an Arab does when he is 

190 




Phil and Aleppo 



Ships of the Desert 

starting on a journey is to look to his animal's 
hump, for without the nourishment stored up for 
him in this, the camel would often be in a bad 
way. Once our humps are exhausted, it takes three 
or four months of rest and good feeding to bring 
them up again." 

"But how do you 'feed' on them, Aleppo ?" 

" We absorb the fat of which they are com- 
posed into our system," said Aleppo, "just as, in 
colder regions of the earth, the bears, during their 
long winter sleep, live on the thick layer of fat stored 
up for them during the autumn beneath their 
skins." 

" Is there water in your hump, too ? " asked Phil. 
" I often used to wonder when I heard about you 
how you can go as many days without it as they 
say you do when you are crossing the desert." 

" No," said Aleppo, with a wide grin. " We hold 

our stores of water in what you might call a 

'reservoir' of deep honeycomb cells inside our 

paunch. These cells hold altogether as much as six 
191 



In Nature s School 

quarts of fluid, and when we have taken a long 
drink the mouth of each cell contracts, so that the 
water is prevented from mixing with our food. 

" Some camels can go longer without drinking 
than others. This is because they can dilate these 
cells, and so carry a larger supply of water. It is 
said" — his voice became very mournful, and he 
stopped scrunching the dry beans — "that rather 
than die of thirst the Arabs have been known to 
kill us in the wilderness, that they might steal the 
water yet remaining in our cells! But I can scarcely 
believe it! " 

Phil was deeply impressed. 

"Is there any other animal in the world so 
wonderfully made as you are?" he asked. 

Aleppo looked at him with a kind smile, for he, 
in common with every living creature, was glad to 
be appreciated. 

"There are many just as wonderful in their own 

way," he said, "but the only other animal I know 

of who has this ' reservoir ' inside him is the Llama. 

192 



Ships of the Desert 

In the mountainous regions of Chili and Peru he 
fills our place as servant to man." 

Phil waited to hear more, but Aleppo was 
wrapped in thought. 

The dusk had gathered; the sellers from the 
market place had gone away, and as the brilliant 
stars flamed in the heavens one by one, a hush 
fell over the scene. Suddenly Aleppo raised his 
head; from afar off came the jangling of many 
bells, the sound of flutes and flageolets, of the beat- 
ing of drums and of shouts of exultation. 

"It is a caravan of pilgrims," said Aleppo, "on 
their way to the Holy City, where, enthroned upon 
a camel, Mohammed gave the law. The pilgrims 
travel by night; they started only a few hours since, 
and this is not one of their halting places, so you 
will see them pass." 

The cavalcade came nearer. Phil could see now 
the lighted torches that the pilgrims waved; their 
yellow flames lit up the scene, and shone on the 
silver trappings of the foremost camels. Streamers 
193 N 



In Nature s School 

of coloured silk floated above their heads or trailed 
behind them; the saddles of the Heiries were of the 
richest velvet, purple and blue, and necklaces of 
coral and amber hung below their bridles. The 
swarthy faces of their riders shone with fervour as 
they played their flutes, or sang their hymns of 
praise, and the satin-skinned Arab horses, who 
formed a minor part of the cavalcade, pranced and 
curveted as the torch light gleamed on their 
polished sides. 

" Poor things," said Aleppo with a pitying look. 
"When the fierce rays of the sun stream down 
upon them, and their hoofs sink deeply into the 
shifting sands, they will suffer tortures. Many die 
on these pilgrimages before the journey is half 
over, for Nature has not fitted them, as she has us, 
to cross the desert." 

"Tell me about them!" entreated Phil, as the 

beautiful creatures still came on, their eyes flashing 

with pride of race, and every line of their slender 

bodies a thing of beauty. 

194 



Ships of the Desert 

"They are famous all the world over," said 
Aleppo; "so famous that it is difficult now for even 
an Arab Sheik to increase his stud. To be accounted 
of pure lineage, an Arab horse must belong to one 
of the five breeds which are said to be descended 
from King Solomon's favourite mares ! Their pedi- 
grees are written in parchment; they are contained 
in the little pouches their masters hang round their 
necks. Arab horses do not know the meaning of a 
blow, and because they have never been roughly 
treated they are as gentle as they are brave. They 
neither jib nor rear, and in spite of their small size 
are full of fire and courage.'' 

The Arab horses passed, and yet the cavalcade 
streamed on. Now there were camels again, still 
more resplendent in their trappings than those that 
had gone before. Embroideries of gold and silver 
bedecked their saddles, and glittered beneath the 
robes of flowing white which are the Arabs' native 
dress. One pure grey Heirie was decked with ostrich 
feathers, and had his bridle studded with rubies and 

195 N2 



In Nature s School 

emeralds, and gleaming topaz. His master was the 
Emir Hadgi, the commander of the pilgrimage. 

"I once took part in a pilgrimage myself," said 
Aleppo refleftively, when the last of the cavalcade 
was out of sight. "Even for me, trained as I was to 
go long distances, it was a hard struggle to endure 
to the end. There was a terrible sand storm, and 
water failed; the wells, when we reached them, 
were all dried up, and but few of the pilgrims sur- 
vived." 

Aleppo paused. He was thinking of the strange 
fascination of the desert in spite of all its terrors, 
and of the wonderful piftures he had seen in the 
desert sky that men called "mirages." They were 
of shady groves and flowing rivers, and many a 
time had Aleppo seen them as he pressed on through 
the sands, with head held high, so that he might 
scan the horizon for the longed-for oasis. He 
turned to speak of these to Phil; but his little com- 
panion, he saw, had meantime drifted off to dream- 
land. 

196 




Chapter the Eleventh 

'' All Glory Fades'' 
HIL was awakened by more tink- 
ling of bells. The caravan was 
about to start, and Aleppo, the 
last to be loaded, told him to sit in 
front of his pack, so that he might 
go with them a part of the way. 

"You will know then what it is to cross the 
desert," he said. And Phil, a little surprised that 
he had so far escaped the Arabs' notice, tucked 
himself in between two bales of silk. He was re- 
lieved when Aleppo explained to him that only 
animals could see him now. 

The desert was very beautiful — that was what 
Phil thought first. The bright sands on the drifted 

heaps, that changed their form with every puff" 

197 



In Nature s School 

of wind, looked like beaten gold in the sunlight; 
the cloudless dome of the blue sky, so crystal clear 
that it might have been mirrored water, spanned 
the unbroken plains, where the black shadows of 
the great rocks stood out sharp and distinct as slabs 
of ebony. 

Aleppo lowered his beetling brows as a storm 
of sand swept over the caravan, and on each side 
of his nose he shut down his lid-like nostrils 
as we do the lid of a box. His feet, furnished with 
soft elastic cushions, that left only the horn-covered 
tips of his toes free, trod easily in the loose sand; 
he moved as silently as if shod with velvet, and Phil 
soon grew accustomed to the motion made by his 
long strides. He was glad to listen while Aleppo 
talked, which he did at intervals in a low tone. 

"Camels are almost the only animals in the 

world," he said, "of which no wild members of 

their family now exist. For thousands of years we 

have been used as beasts of burden, and no other 

animals could take our place." 

198 



All Glory Fades 

Then he told Phil of the days of ancient times, 
when lions had been common in Arabia, and their 
attacks were nightly dreaded. The thought of lions 
made Phil straighten himself and look eagerly 
ahead. 

"Are there lions here still? " he said. 

"In some districts," replied Aleppo. "I have 
heard, but know not if it be true, that an old lion, 
once famous for his great strength, still haunts a 
deserted village on the borders of which we pass. 
He was called the Strong One, and many feared 
him. His eyes were like shafts of lightning, and 
his roar more awful than thunder." 

The camels wended their way through the 
desert at a steady pace of some three miles an hour, 
but though the Arabs crooned many songs to en- 
liven the journey, Phil found the hours pass slowly. 
About four o'clock the camels were unloaded, to 
get what nourishment they could from the thorny 
shrubs growing here and there amongst the sand. 

The leaves looked dry and withered, but Aleppo 
199 



In Nature s School 

ate them thankfully. If these did not fail him, and 
water held out, he would be content. In order 
that he might not wander too far, his master had 
tied his forelegs together, and Phil kept close 
beside him as he hobbled about in search of food. 
For though he knew the Arabs could not see him, he 
was happier when not beneath their sad dark eyes. 

Soon after sunset the camels were called to kneel 
beside the baggage, that they might settle for the 
night. The Arabs unfurled their tents, looking 
ghostlike in their white garments as they moved 
about. The distant yell of a hyena mingled with 
their strange voices, and a wave of homesickness 
swept over Phil. 

"This is not so nice as the woods," he mur- 
mured, as he rested his head on Aleppo's hump. 

"The green plains are beyond," returned the 
camel, and Phil was ashamed that he should have 
heard him grumble. 

Morning came after night, and night after mor- 
ning, each so like the other that Phil was surprised 



200 



All Glory Fades 

when Aleppo told him that they had been travel- 
ling for five days. 

"They w^ill give us w^ater to-night," he said; 
and v^hen the camels w^ere unloaded the Arabs 
took dow^n the v^ater skins, and shared their con- 
tents w^ith the animals who had borne them. 

And how thirsty they were! They could have 
drunk far more deeply had they been allowed, but 
the sun had drawn some of the precious water 
back to himself, and, though the journey was but 
beginning, the skins were not nearly so full as they 
should have been. 

"It will be all right soon," said Aleppo hope- 
fully. "They will replenish them from Moham- 
med's well, which has never failed us yet." 

But when they came to it they found it empty, 
and a deep gloom spread over the caravan. The 
Arabs scarcely spoke save to encourage their 
camels, who plodded on patiently, making no com- 
plaint. Even the sparse thorn bushes had disap- 
peared, and the Vultures, like grim spectres, 

20I 



In Nature s School 

marked their way. There was no sign of water, 
and the camels Hfted their long necks and sniffed 
in vain. 

The days wore on. Another well, on which they 
had built their hopes, was found to be empty too, 
and even the darkness scarcely brought relief from 
the great heat. A camel fell to the ground from 
exhaustion; the Arabs removed his pack, dividing 
its weight between his comrades, and sadly left 
him there to die. 

" It is a bad look out," said Aleppo. " Call you 
the night wind, that she may take you where the 
woods are green. It will hurt you to see us suffer, 
and alas! you can do no good." 

'' I shall not call her until all is well with you," 
said Phil, though he longed for the sight of waving 
trees and running water. He often dreamt now of 
the crystal stream by which he had played with 
Feathertail, where the ferns drooped over the small 
blue flowers that were so like forget-me-nots. How 
pleasant it would be there, with Feathertail to play 



202 



All Glory Fades 

with, and the birds to sing to him. . . . But Phil 
knew that it was wrong to leave a friend in trouble; 
and Aleppo was his friend. He, too, must learn to 
endure. It was a hard lesson, for though, as Nature 
had promised, he felt neither thirst nor hunger, it 
was bad enough to see the suffering he could not 
help. The hump Aleppo had been so proud of had 
nearly gone; his mouth and throat were swollen 
from thirst, and the other camels were even in 
worse plight. 

"If you made a fuss," Phil said, "I don't think 
I should mind so much. But none of you ever 
grumble — you just go on.'* 

"It's the only way," said Aleppo, trying to be 
cheerful still. " When your feet are weary and the 
road is hard, there is nothing for it but to go straight 
on. Grumbling won't help you; patience and 
courage will." 

One day, when even Aleppo had given up hope, 

the foremost camel lifted his head and sniffed. He 

quickened his pace; the camel behind him hastened, 
203 



In Nature s School 

too, and through the caravan passed a thrill of joy 
— the camels had scented water! It was far off yet 
— so far that not for another hour did the welcome 
sight of a green oasis meet the wild eyes of the 
fainting Arabs, whose stiff, dry lips refused to 
form the words that would urge the camels 
forward. 

But words were not needed. New life had come 
to the dragging limbs of the patient creatures, and 
their burdens had grown light. In twenty minutes 
the caravan had reached the oasis, and with a loud 
cry the Arabs flung themselves on the ground beside 
the deep, cool stream, under the shade of the date 
trees. The camels, patient as ever, waited for their 
turn; then, as they drank, their weariness was for- 
gotten. 

For two nights and a day the caravan halted in 

the oasis, whose deep, rich green glowed like some 

splendid emerald in the dull gold of that arid waste. 

The ruddy fruit of the pomegranate tree weighed 

down its branches; the stately date palms, festooned 

204 



All Glory Fades 

with vines, sheltered and fed both men and camels. 
Never was shade more welcome. 

But it would not do to linger; the Arabs and 
their merchandise were already overdue, and they 
were not yet at their journey's end. Very early in 
the morning after the second night the camels were 
reloaded, and the caravan started once more. They 
stepped out bravely, though it was easy to see how 
their humps had dwindled, and the songs of the 
Arabs were hymns of praise to the great "Allah'' 
who had spared them the terrors of death in the 
wilderness. 

"In a little while," said Aleppo, "our wander- 
ings will be over for a space. To-morrow we 
shall pass the deserted village of which I told 
you, where the Arabs say the old lion lingers 
still." 

They reached it soon after dusk next day, and 

Phil slipped quietly from Aleppo's back and gave 

him a farewell hug. 

"I shall never forget you," he said earnestly, 
205 



In Nature s School 

"and I'll try to be patient and go straight on when 
the road is hard." 

"That's right," said Aleppo. "Go straight on 
and do your best, that you may not fall by the 
way. To suffer patiently, the Arabs say, is to be 
greater than kings." 

Phil watched the caravan out of sight. When 
the jangling of the camels' bells grew so faint that 
he could scarcely hear them, he turned aside 
and entered the village. 

The portals of the ruined huts were thick with 
dust, and the gardens w^hich once upon a time had 
been filled with blossom were choked with sand and 
noxious weeds. The broken windlass of the well, 
long since dried up, was rusty with age, and the 
dismal howl of the hyena seemed fitting music for 
so grim a scene. 

A belt of stunted trees grew by a heap of rock 
beyond the well. Was it his fancy, Phil wondered, 
or did he really see some great gaunt form moving 
between their twisted trunks? He moved nearer; 

206 




Who calls nic ? 



All Glory Fades 

the deepening twilight made it impossible for him 
to be sure whether his sight had not misled him. 

"Are you there, O Strong One ? *' he called. A 
loud roar answered him — a roar so thunderously- 
terrible that fear sprang suddenly upon him and 
clutched his heart-strings. He drove it back im- 
mediately, and did not even flinch when Something 
detached itself from the shadows and came towards 
him with stealthy tread. Two eyes of fire, watchful 
and menacing, looked into his. It was the old lion, 
his massive form wasted by sickness. His great tail 
lashed angrily from side to side, as though he would 
not submit with patience to intrusion. 

"Ah, I know now," he said, when Phil timidly 
reminded him of Nature's promise. "You find me 
in an evil hour, for age has come upon me. I am 
no longer 'The Strong One' at whose name the 
Arab shuddered, while his horses shrieked with 
fear. The meanest hyena dares to mock me now; 
it had been well for me had I died in my full 

strength." 

207 



In Nature s School 

The great beast moved back slowly to the shelter 
of the rocks, and there lay silent for awhile. The 
roar that he had given in answer to PhiFs call had 
exhausted his failing strength, and as the moon 
rose high in the sky his head drooped mournfully. 

"But a few short years ago," he said, "and I 
was in my prime. My muscles were as firm as iron ; 
my powerful limbs could leap for incredible dis- 
tances through the air, and I could strike an ox or 
heifer to the ground with a single stroke. My 
tawny coat, the colour of the desert sands-through 
which I loved to roam, was close as velvet, and 
although my mane was not so long as that of the 
lions in Africa, it was sufficiently flowing and 
abundant to make me the admired of all my kin- 
dred. My flying feet, armed with strong claws 
which I can sheathe at will, bore me long distances 
in search of prey. My lioness and my cubs knew 
not the meaning of hunger; they supped each 
night on the tender flesh of plump young heifers, 

sheep or goats, and if they hunted it was only for 

208 



All Glory Fades 

the pleasure of it. They did not need to kill. Those 
were good days." 

Phil wondered if the "plump young heifers'* 
had enjoyed themselves equally well. As he gazed 
refleftively ahead, he saw a big hyena lurking in 
the shade of a ruined temple; another, some dis- 
tance off, repeated the horrible laugh that Phil had 
heard before. It was accompanied by the wildest 
gestures ; the animal rose on his hind legs and 
rocked himself from side to side in a paroxysm of 
goblin mirth to which it was terrible to listen. 

"He waits for me," said the old lion grimly. 
" When the breath has left my body, and the limbs 
that they fear still have no longer power to strike 
even a feeble blow, he and his comrades will swarm 
around me and tear my flesh, sharing the spoil with 
the vultures against their will.*' 

Another outburst of awesome laughter drove 

Phil to bury his head in the lion's mane. The old 

lion uttered a low cry of tenderness; Phil made him 

think of his last cub, and it was long since he had 
209 o 



In Nature s School 

felt anything young and tender nestling against him. 

"The natives sometimes call laughing hyenas 
'Tiger Wolves,'" he went on presently. "They 
hate them far more bitterly than they do us, and 
with good reason — though if there were no hyenas 
to devour the refuse they throw out into their streets 
and pathways, plague and pestilence would soon be 
in their midst. No flesh, however rank and putrid, 
is too decayed for the hyena, whose jaws are of 
mighty power and whose appetite is insatiable." 

"Then if the natives find them so useful, why 
do they hate them so ? " 

"Because, unlike ourselves, who seldom actually 
attack man unless in self defence or driven by hunger, 
a certain number of hyenas prefer human flesh to 
any other, and they are such pitiful cowards that 
they would rather seize little children from their 
mother's arms than meet a man in fair fight. 

"Curiously enough, the hyena is one of the few 
animals who is not scared away by fire. On dark 
nights he will steal past the Arabs' watch fires into 



2IO 



All Glory Fades 

their encampments while they are sleeping, creep- 
ing through the cattle picketed in the enclosure 
outside their tents without touching a single heifer; 
for when he is after human flesh the hyena dis- 
dains all other. He enters the tents so silently that 
no one is disturbed. If the sleepers are full grown, 
he slinks away as silently as he came; but should 
a baby be resting by its mother's side, he will 
seize it in his horrible jaws, and disappear before 
she has time to wake. No weeping or wailing will 
bring it back to her; and so she hates the hyena." 

The old lion stirred, and Phil noticed the length 
of the "whiskers" on either side of his nose. The 
Strong One explained that so exquisite was the 
sense of touch of these "feelers," that by their aid 
alone he could find his way through the dark. 

Then he showed Phil his marvellous tongue, 
which, in common with all the Cat tribe, was 
covered with a multitude of tiny conical curved 
points. These were useful, he said, to strip the flesh 
from his prey, and Phil had to listen to many stories 

211 02 



In Nature s School 

of successful raids upon the sheep and oxen of the 
wandering Bedouins. 

" One tribe," he said, his dimmed old eyes burn- 
ing bright again, "had long vowed vengeance 
against me, and when they tracked me to the deep 
thicket where I hid by day, they planned that night 
to attack and kill me. Their warriors gathered in 
the shades of evening, some on horseback, some on 
foot, and all, doubtless, full of pride at their great 
daring. It took many of them to hunt one lion! 

"When it was quite dark — there was no moon, I 
remember, and at first the stars were hidden by 
clouds — they approached my thicket warily, the 
mounted Bedouins coming first. At a short distance 
away from me they halted, and formed themselves 
into three rows — the first to attack, the second to 
defend the first should the fight be going against 
them, and the third consisting of the best marks- 
men of them all. 

" Calling me by every ill name of which they could 
think, the Bedouins in the foremost row rode to 

212 



All Glory Fades 

my lair. Stung by their insults, I rushed out furi- 
ously; and so great was the name that I bore for 
strength and daring that, though they had wished 
for this, their courage failed them. 

"'The Strong One! He comes!' they cried, fall- 
ing back before me, while their marksmen levelled 
their long sticks which spat out fire. 

" It was so dark that my gleaming eyes were all 
they had to aim at, and already my frightful roaring 
had caused some of the horses to stampede. Bees 
with hard noses whizzed round me, but they passed 
over my head or stuck in my flesh, where they did 
no harm; I have one in my shoulder now, and 
whenever it pricks I think of those Arab chiefs, 
who proved themselves to be cowards at heart. 

"'He is here — he is here!' they cried in confu- 
sion, as I turned to rend them with my claws. Then 
I dashed through their ranks, and fled to the desert, 
satisfied to know that some of those warriors" 
— how fine was the scorn in the old lion's voice! — 

"would bear my marks to their dying day." 
213 



In Nature s School 

The Strong One's voice trailed into silence, and 
he composed himself as though to sleep. His breath 
came fitfully; his wasted limbs lay flat against the 
ground. Phil bent to stroke him, and he opened his 
glazing eyes. " Farewell," he cried. " Remember — 
all glory fades." Then he lay very still. 

The prowling hyenas came nearer, skulking 
through the shadows with stealthy tread . . . The 
night wind swept through the stunted trees, and 
caught Phil quickly away. 

" We will go to the jungle," she whispered," and 
you shall see the Gorilla King." 



214 



Chapter the Twelfth 

An Unloved King, 
HE Gorilla King raised his head 
from the trunk of the great tree 
against which he had slept, and 
tried to remember what had made 
him "see red" the night before. 




It was early still, and the sun had not yet pierced 

his way through the tangled jungle of the African 

forest; but the gorgeous parrots roosting in the 

thick vines were already stirring, and a Civet Cat, 

seeking her morning meal, stole through the bushes 

and looked up longingly. The Gorilla King caught 

sight of her, and scowled so horribly that she fled 

away. 

He was an ugly monster. Phil, watching him 

from behind a giant palm tree, thought him too 
215 



In Nature s School 

hideous for words. His frowning brows hung low 
over fierce dark eyes; his thick-set jaw looked cruel 
and sullen, and his great body was covered with 
coarse black hair that was tipped with white. He 
was King of the Forest, Phil had heard ; he was glad 
that he was not his subjeft. 

The great beast raised himself and stood ereft; 
his knees turned outward, and his long arms, with 
their black-palmed hands, hung loosely from his 
shoulders. As memory came back to him, his 
features were convulsed with rage, and his curled- 
back lips displayed his yellow fangs. Beating his 
breast, he gave vent to a succession of piercing 
yells, beginning in a low key and extending higher 
and higher until the forest rang with the unearthly 
sounds. 

"Isn't it awful?" whispered a small monkey, 

swinging himself down to Phil from the boughs of 

a cotton tree. " His eldest wife offended him last 

night, and he all but killed her in his rage. There 

she is — under the branches opposite. She is better 

216 




The Ourang-outan^ 



An Unloved King 

this morning, but frightened out of her Hfe.'* 
Huddled up under a Mango tree was the Queen 
Gorilla, leaning her head on her hands in such a 
human way that Phil was startled. Grouped around 
her were other gorillas of various sizes, all part of the 
King's family. They seemed sorry for the poor 
Queen, and one of the younger wives threw her 
arm round her as if in sympathy. She took it quickly 
away again as the King stared savagely at her and 
yelled more loudly than ever. 

"Come away," whispered the monkey, close to 
Phil's ear, " he'll go on like that for the next hour. 
It's his way of letting off steam. Then his wives and 
their little ones will bring him some of the red fruit 
that grows at the root of the Batuna, and nuts from 
the oil palms, and juicy tendrils of the vine; if he 
accepts them there will be peace for a time, but he 
has an ugly temper." 

"What is the matter with him?" asked Phil, as 
he scampered off with the monkey, using his arms, 

as he had no tail, to fling himself from branch to 

217 



In Nature s School 

branch, and getting on very well indeed. The 
monkey, who had a fringe of white hair round 
his comical little face, and a big white spot in the 
centre of it to which he owed his name of " White- 
Nose,'' stopped swinging and gave a thoughtful 
twist to his lips. 

"He's out with the world," he said, "and we 
often wonder why. He does as he likes in the 
forest, and reigns supreme — even the Chimpan- 
zees, who are far more clever than he, and twice as 
aftive, never dispute his Kingship, and leopards 
and panthers give him a wide berth." 

" Perhaps he gets his own way too much ? " 
suggested Phil, and White-Nose thought there 
might be something in this. 

They were some distance from the Gorilla now, 

but the sound of his shrieks still pursued them. A 

bird, whose wings of burnished gold were tinted 

with emerald and sapphire, flew out of her nest as 

White-Nose passed; and the sun, piercing at last 

through the thick jungle, showed Phil her won- 

218 



An Unloved King 

drous beauty. She must be a fairy princess, he 
thought, who had been carried away from her home 
by a Gorilla, and was now a prisoner in the jungle. 
He wanted to ask her how she could be rescued, 
but White-Nose was already introducing him to a 
large number of his friends and relatives, who had 
just now surrounded them, and were all talking 
together. 

At the tip of the biggest branch sat a venerable 
White-Nose with the air of a grandfather. Behind 
him, one after another, with arms on each other's 
shoulders, were a long row of monkeys, who 
peeped at Phil sideways and chattered with all 
their might. So far as he could make out they were 
saying what a curious little creature he was him- 
self! The venerable White-Nose commanded 
silence, and was instantly obeyed. 

"Look at the shape of his arms,'' he said, just as 

if he were taking a class in school, and pointing at 

Phil as he stood on the ground. "You will notice 

that they are much shorter than ours, and his legs 
219 



In Nature s School 

look very queer. His hands are quite different too, 
with long thumbs instead of short ones. He has 
no more tail than a Chimpanzee, and the skin of 
his face is bare. Whether he has hair on his body 
I cannot say; perhaps he will take off his coat and 
let us see." 

But Phil refused. "I think I would rather not," 
he said uneasily, wondering what they would want 
him to do next. 

His curls seemed to distress the old monkey as 
much as they had done Bruno; he pulled them 
gently, to see if they would come out; then tried 
to arrange his pet son's hair in the same way. 
Presently he gave up the attempt in despair, and 
again called the chattering troop of monkeys to 
order. 

"I am going to put them through their drill," 
he said. "We live in 'schools,' and I, the eldest 
amongst them and a great-grandfather, am at their 
head. Now, my children, show our visitor what you 
would do if we were threatened with danger. Fly !" 



220 



An Unloved King 

They fled. The boughs were empty, and the 
venerable White-Nose chuckled. 

"That was a good way to get rid of them," he 
said. "They will not dare to come back until I 
say all's safe. Now I should like to hear your story; 
where you come from and what you are." 

This was rather turning the tables, and Phil 
had to answer questions now instead of asking 
them. The monkey was most interested in hearing 
about his life at school, and could not understand 
why he should haveobjefted so much to his school- 
fellows' pranks. 

"Young things wouldn't be young things," he 
said, indulgently, " if they^didn 't tease one another. 
You '11 have to turn over a new leaf when you go 
home, and give and take. But that Dick Thorp of 
yours makes me think of the Gorilla, w^ho is cun- 
ning and sullen, and a tyrant, too. He hasn't a 
friend in the forest, and is only obeyed through fear. 
Now with the Chimpanzees it is quite different. 
They are gentle enough, with all their strength, 



221 



In Natures School 

and live most happily together. You could not have 
a better guide than Kamba to show you round the 
jungle; if you look through that grove of cotton 
trees you will see him coming for you. One of the 
forest creatures must have told him you were here/' 

"Kamba" was a Chimpanzee, and even a first 
glance showed that he and the Gorilla had little m 
common, though their hairy bodies were somewhat 
of the same shape. His ugly face had a sort of wist- 
ful kindness, and his voice, as he asked if Phil were 
there, was much less harsh. His eyes were mild and 
gentle, and lighted up as Phil replied. 

"I have been expe6ting you," he said. "The 
night wind told us you were coming. The jungle 
is at its best just now, and there are many creatures 
here that you might like to see. Have you ever met 
the Pichey Armadillo? He's a funny little fellow, 
and very proud of being the only one of his species 
who lives in Africa. It is not often you find him in 
the jungle, for he prefers the sandy plains. I saw 
him under the bushesjust now; yes — here he is!" 



222 



An Unloved King 

The Pichey Armadillo, a little animal cased in 
an armour of horny plates, like all his kin, had been 
hunting for insefts, which formed his staple article 
of food. He waslittle more than afoot in length, and 
seemed most anxious to escape their notice. With 
a few rapid movements of his feet he scooped a hole 
in the ground, and disappeared into this as if he 
were performing a conjuring trick. 

"He's very unsociable," complained the Chim- 
panzee, "and never stops to say 'good morning.' 
He sleeps by day, and in the night prowls round for 
food. He can live for months without drinking 
water, and wages war on all young snakes. It is a 
pity that he has gone." 

"I would much rather talk to you," said Phil, 
and Kamba, plainly gratified, linked his arm in his 
and walked along beside him for a few steps, as 
nearly ereft as it is possible for an ape to be. 

"We are not formed to walk on two legs," he 

said after a few minutes, dropping down on all 

fours again. "Our knees are always more or less 
223 



In Nature s School 

bent, and this makes it impossible for us to move 
in the same way that you do. You are the only 
animal that can walk upright, they say. Perhaps 
that's why you are so different from all of us." 

The moist air of the jungle grew hotter and 
more oppressive as the sun rose higher. Vines clus- 
tered densely from tree to tree, and blossoms of 
gold and purple hung from the giant-stemmed 
creepers that festooned their branches. Sweet- 
smelling vanillas shed their fragrance far and wide, 
and everywhere was a tangled mass of green. A 
thousand strange sounds fell on Phil's ears. Loudest 
amongst these was one that reminded him of the 
barking of dogs; it came from the branches of an 
enormous tree — so large that on each of its spread- 
ing boughs, which were almost as thick at their 
rounded ends as where they joined the trunk, a 
lad of sixteen could have stretched himself in com- 
fort. From the end of these sprang smaller branches, 
with light green leaves and golden fruit, the size 

of cucumbers, hanging from twisted stalks. The 

224 



i 



An Unloved King 

trunk, Phil guessed, would take at least twenty men 
with arms outstretched to form a circle round it. 
It was truly a forest giant. 

"This is the Baobab, or monkey-bread tree," 
said Kamba, "and its fruit is our favourite food. 
The trunks of these trees are often hollow with 
decay from their great age, and hold a store of 
water which in other distrifts the natives tap. The 
hollow in this tree is as large as a fair-sized room." 

While Phil was still gazing at the Baobab in 
amazement, his new friend took him gently by the 
nape of his neck with one hand, and drew him up 
^ with him into its thick green canopy. 

Some eighteen or twenty chimpanzees, whose 
excited speech was the " barking " which Phil had 
heard, were seated on its wide branches. They 
were presided over by an old fellow who appeared 
to be full of years and honours. 

"Here is the boy, my father," said Kamba. 

"He is welcome!" declared Prince Chim, 
smihno: at Phil with o:enial warmth. "Since you 



t) ^^ ^ — ..^^^^ ^ 



y 



225 p 



In Nature s School 

may not care to be the Gorilla's guest," he added, 
addressing him personally, "perhaps you will be 



ours." 



Phil was delighted, for he had taken a great 
fancy to Kamba, and liked the look of all the chim- 
panzees. So he shook hands with Prince Chim, 
and nodded to the rest, who eyed him curiously. 

"A grave matter has arisen," explained Prince 

Chim, when Phil was seated by his side, " which 

needs much thought. Usually, as you may have 

heard, our tribes are left in peace except by Man, 

who, seeing that we are so like himself, is ever 

ready to kill or wound us. Seldom, however, does 

he penetrate so far into the jungle, and for years 

our young ones have been unmolested; even 

such beasts as the leopard and the panther know 

that when once aroused our wrath is to be feared. 

Now — " he looked round solemnly, and the baby 

chimpanzees, locked in their mothers' arms, hid 

their faces on the hairy shoulders that were to 

them such temples of refuge — " now this is altered. 

226 



An Unloved King 

A king of Leopards, cunning and furious beyond 
his kind, prowls round by night and seeks to sur- 
prise one of our number sleeping, so that at last he 
may boast that he has slain a chimpanzee. We live 
in companies, but it sometimes happens that our 
young males wander far through the jungle, and 
are surprised by night before they can rejoin us. It 
is one of these the leopard seeks.'' 

The mother of Kamba, who had her hair neatly 
parted down the centre of her head, instead of wear- 
ing it in an upright crest as the others did, put her 
paw upon Prince Chim's shoulder. 

"It's much too hot to talk just now," she said, 
fanning herself with the broad leaf in her other 
hand. " Wait till to-night, and call a conclave." 

Prince Chim considered; it was good advice. 

"It shall be so," he said gravely, and from the 
excitement of the younger members of the troop 
Phil guessed there would be special interest in this. 

Kamba now invited Phil to come for a walk. 
He was anxious to show the beauties of his home, 

227 P2 



In Nature s School — 

and pressed upon him the choicest fruits and ber- 
ries. Phil tasted Kola nuts for the first time, and 
liked their curious flavour. He slacked his thirst 
at a stream half hidden by heavy trails of splendid 
ca(5tus flowers, and wondered if Aleppo had come 
to his journey's end. The sound of much rustling 
in the leaves drew Kamba's attention, and he 
pointed to a low bush, out of which waddled a 
porcupine, evidently in a great hurry to go home 
to bed, just as the Urson had been. 

He was very different to look at, for his whole 
armoury of pointed spears was lavishly displayed, 
and except about his head and the upper parts of 
his body, he seemed to have no hair. Kamba did 
not attempt to touch him. 

"He killed a leopard once," he said, looking 
after him enviously as the porcupine made his way 
to the deep burrow he had scraped out for himself 
amongst the roots of a cotton tree. " The leopard 
was young and hungry, and foolish enough to think 

that a porcupine could be scrunched up, quills and 

228 



An Unloved King 

all. But this little fellow defended himself fiercely, 
and managed to dig some of his sharp quills into 
the leopard's ear. One reached his brain, and King 
Gorilla found him dead next morning, and danced 
upon his head." 

" What a fearful beast that Gorilla is ! " remarked 
Phil, taking a look round to make sure he was 
nowhere near. 

Kamba looked round too. 

" Sometimes we think," he said, " that he is pos- 
sessed by an evil spirit. There is a legend amongst 
us which says that although never of a gay disposi- 
tion, the Gorilla was well content with his lot until, 
wandering down to the coastline, he first saw Man, 
when envy took possession of him and madness 
filled his breast. It is his fearful temper that makes 
him hated; in spite of his fierce strength, he attacks 
nothing that he does not need for food, when he is 
calm. Still, he is shunned by all, and even his 
young ones, whom he keeps always with him until 

they are quite grown up, are sullen and morose. I 
229 



In Nature s School 

have never yet seen gorillas at play, and although 
when very young they cling to their mothers, they 
show little afFeftion for them afterwards." 

"Where are we going?" asked Phil, as the 
undergrowth became still more tangled, and the 
creeping plants that climbed round every trunk 
tripped him up with their twisted stems. No sun 
could shine through here; it was like dusk, and an 
evil little scorpion glared at them through the 
semi-darkness. 

"These are the haunts of the Python," Kamba 
whispered mysteriously. " Watch ! you will see him 
climb that tree after the birds." 

During the last hour the jungle had become 

more silent. It was ten o'clock, and the hottest part 

of the day; the creatures of the night had long gone 

back to their holes, and the birds were dozing now 

in their nests or amongst the branches. A huge 

Python, his black coils glistening and his eyes red 

points of fire, glided out from beneath a low bush 

and coiled himself round the trunk of a slender 

230 



An Unloved King 

tree. Pushing his head forward, he grasped a bough, 
and lifting himself from one branch to another he 
approached so near to a large grey parrot that she 
was almost in his jaws. Phil tried to call, but not a 
sound came from his lips. Her doom was almost 
sealed when, warned by some instinft that danger 
was near, she fluttered out of the Python's reach at 
the last moment. 

Phil drew a breath of relief. 

"I don't want to see any more of him," he said 
to Kamba, who had looked on almost indifferently. 
Chimpanzees are not averse to making a meal off 
birds themselves, as Phil learnt afterwards; though 
whilst he was with them he saw nothing of this. 

" I think we'll rest for a few hours, until it grows 

cooler," Kamba remarked when they had put a safe 

distance between themselves and the Python. With 

one arm round Phil and the other supporting his 

own weight, he settled himself comfortably in a 

banana tree, and closed his eyes. 

" Now let us think," he said. 
231 




Chapter the Thirteenth 

^^A Frie?id in the Jungle " 

HIL was not even drowsy. On 
every side of him was something 
new and strange, and he was eager 
to watch the enormous black 
spider with very long legs and a 
fat body, the size of a small mouse, that had sud- 
denly popped out from a little door in the ground, 
immediately under the banana tree. She had long 
fangs armed with sharp hooks, and looked very 
ferocious as she ran violently backward and for- 
ward in search of something that she might 
devour. A swarm of black ants, out on the same 
errand, fled quickly before her; and as she 
swallowed two that had lingered behind to finish 

a duel, Phil was glad that she was down on the 

232 



A Friend in the Jungle 

ground instead of amongst the branches of the 
banana tree. 

After a short time she reappeared from behind 
a large stone with a more satisfied expression, and 
proceeded to open her trap door. SHpping very 
quietly from Kamba's encircling arm, Phil bent 
cautiously forward, trying to see what was in- 
side it. 

" Come and have a look! " she cried, perceiving 
him; and Phil, who had suddenly grown quite 
small, mustered up all his courage and jumped 
down after her. 

He was in a long tubular hole, lined with pure 
white silk, behind which, the Trap-door Spider 
told him proudly, was an inner lining of a coarser 
fabric, like tapestry. 

" My house is my castle," she said, " and I Hke 
everything dainty about me. See how exquisitely I 
have fashioned my front door! It is made of several 
layers of earth cemented together by silken threads, 
and is balanced so that when opened it shuts by 
233 



In Nature s School 

its own weight. Look at the perfect hinge I made 
for it, and the little holes opposite, in which I 
hook my claws and hold down the door if an 
animal attempts to get in from the outside." 

Phil looked at all she pointed out to him, and 
agreed with her that she had fashioned her house 
well. 

"Do you live here alone?" he asked. 

"I am a widow," she answered shortly. "My 
mate was not — sufficiently respectful. He was 
plump, too, and smaller than I. And insects were 
scarce in the rains." 

Phil shrank away from her in disgust. So she 
had actually eaten the poor spider who had been 
bold enough to take her for his mate! Phil had 
heard of such things, but never quite believed them 
until now. 

"It was much happier for him," said the spider 
placidly. " We were quite unsuited to each other. 
Now, I wonder what that is?" 

"That" was a gentle scratching on the lid of 

234 



A Friend in the Jungle 

her trap door. Madame Spider flew to the tiny- 
hole, stuck in her claws, and hung on for dear life. 

"I only wanted to say, 'Good afternoon,'" said 
a mischievous voice, which Phil recognized as that 
of White-Nose. 

"Those Monkeys again!" groaned the Trap- 
Door Spider in a whisper. "They never let me 
alone when I am above ground, but this is the first 
time that one has ever come near my home. I sup- 
pose he knows that you are here, and thinks you '11 
help him. Do, if you dare!" 

Phil sat at the far end of the hole, which was fully 
two feet deep, and wished himself back in Kamba's 
protecting arms. When the Monkey grew tired of 
chattering to the empty air, and departed, Madame 
Spider apologized for her temper. Judging from 
the glimpse oj it that Phil had seen, he was inclined 
to think that perhaps after all it had been better 
for her mate that he had died. 

Like a guest who feels that he has outstayed 
his welcome, Phil was very anxious to depart. 
235 



In Nature's School 

Madame Spider allowed him to go reluctantly; 
she knew that she could not hurt him, but it was 
a terrible wrench to her to part with anything so 
plump as he. She accompanied him to her front 
door, murmuring many regrets that he could not 
stay, and saying such pretty things that Phil felt 
he might have wronged her. Her attention was 
suddenly diverted to two enormous cockroaches, 
who were so absorbed in each other that they 
did not see her until she was close upon them. 
They then stopped abruptly, and the larger of 
the two waved his antenna in fierce defiance. 
The smaller cockroach scuttled away — she was 
a coward, Phil thought indignantly — and the 
Spider advanced with stealthy tread. The cock- 
roach glared at her; he trembled with rage, and 
crouched in a way that fully exposed the sharp 
spines on his legs. For several seconds they both 
stood motionless; then there was a rush and a 
scuffle, and, like a tiger springing upon his prey, 

the Trap-Door Spider darted upon her foe. 

236 



A Friend in the Jungle 

The Cockroach closed his wings; she seized him 
under the throat and overpowered him. . . . Phil 
heard her sharp fangs cutting through his horny- 
skin, and looked round for Kamba, 

Kamba had gone. He had awakened from his 
doze soon after Phil had left him, and, never 
dreaming that he was with the Spider, had gone 
to look for him further on. 

" It is something, anyhow, to be safely out of that 
Spider's den," said Phil, determining to ask some 
more amiable creature the way to Prince Chim's 
Baobab Palace. He had not gone far when he was 
rejoiced to see the funny little face of White-Nose 
peeping at him from a gorgeous cluster of orchids. 

"Kamba's in a great way," said the monkey. 
"He thinks you are lost in the jungle, and may 
meet a scorpion and be alarmed!" 

"A Scorpion couldn't be worse than a Trap- 
Door Spider," said Phil, who, although he was 
now his own size again, still shuddered to think 
of her cruel eyes. 
237 



In Nature s School 

"Couldn't he!" laughed White-Nose. "Why, 
even WE are afraid of him, and we eat spiders 
when we can 't get anything better. In some 
countries people are thankful enough to get a 
Trap-Door Spider to live in their gardens, for 
they clear out all the insefts. A Scorpion lives 
just here. I'll call him out, and then you'll see 
what he is like." 

Holding his hands so that they formed a little 

cup, the monkey scooped out some water that 

still remained in a sheltered hollow between two 

branches of the banana tree, and carefully poured 

it into the entrance to the scorpion's burrow, 

which was shaped in the half circle his claws 

formed when they were at work upon it. He 

had hardly done so when a furious creature, 

something like a spider, with lobster-like claws 

and a sharply pointed tail extending over his 

head, rushed angrily out, snapping wildly at 

everything in his way. When he saw Phil he 

stopped a moment; then crept up threateningly. 

238 



A Friend in the Jungle 

"You had better not touch him! " called White- 
Nose from the banana tree; and with a look that 
was even more fierce than that of the Trap-Door 
Spider, the Scorpion retreated to his burrow. 

"That crooked sting of his can kill the largest 
animal," said the monkey soberly, clambering 
down again. "Near its tip, which is at the end 
of his tail, are two or three small holes, through 
which he shoots his venom. Ugh! It's best to 
keep out of his way." 

Phil thought so too, and took great care also 
not to become entangled in the web of a beauti- 
ful yellow spotted spider. This web was fully a 
yard in width, and hung straight down between 
two trees, suspended by silken lines as coarse as 
thread. All kinds of inserts, the monkey told him, 
were caught on this, and sometimes tiny birds. 

Phil was still thinking of spiders when he saw 
a lone male gorilla amongst the vines. He looked 
desperately sullen, but less ill-tempered than the 
one that Phil had watched in the early morning. 
239 



In Nature's School 

"I'm going to speak to him!" he said, and 
White-Nose vanished. 

The jungle was astir again by now, for although 
it was quite early in the afternoon, the sun was 
getting low in the western sky. Two more goril- 
las came into view as Phil went to meet the first 
— a mother with her young one, which she carried 
on her back. On seeing the male gorilla she sat 
down suddenly, watched him a moment, and then 
retreated into the undergrowth as silently as she 
had come. Evidently she did not want to make 
his acquaintance, or knew him too well. 

"Good afternoon," said Phil, as the gorilla 
sniffled at a tendril of the vine before he put it 
into his mouth. 

The gorilla grunted. 

"Have you paid a visit to the king.?" he 
demanded roughly. 

"I saw him for a moment early this morning, 
and I heard him a long while afterwards," said 

Phil, with meaning. 

240 



A Friend in the Jungle 

"It is great impertinence for you to roam 
through our jungle without having paid your 
respefts to him," roared the gorilla, flaring up in 
a moment. Relieving himself by two or three loud 
shrieks, which were answered from a distance by 
others as piercing, he stood upright, and beat his 
breast, chanting a dirge-like song in some strange 
language Phil could not understand. 

" Follow me," he commanded, turning suddenly 
on his heel; and Phil, making himself as tall as he 
could, walked after him obediently until they 
reached the Gorilla's Court. 

A very different scene met his eyes from that 
which he had witnessed in the morning. Seated 
in state upon an oozing bank sat King Gorilla, 
his wives around him. The injured Qiieen had evi- 
dently been restored to favour, for she sat at his 
right hand. A young gorilla, trembling in every 
limb, was arraigned before him; he had been detec- 
ted in the aft of rifling a fruit tree that his Majesty 
regarded as his special property, Phil learnt this 

241 Q 



In Nature s School 

through the angry voices of his accusers, who were 
naturally indignant. For the rights of property are 
striftly regarded among the Lords of the Jungle; 
no Gorilla or Chimpanzee with any respeft for 
himself would dream either of robbing his neigh- 
bour or allowing himself to be robbed. 

"We command that he be thoroughly beaten, 
and banished for ever from the peaceful swamps of 
the jungle, to end his days by the haunts of our 
enemy, MAN!" thundered the King. The first 
part of the sentence was carried out at once, and 
the unfortunate gorilla was dragged away by a 
group of the strongest males, who seemed to find 
much pleasure in his yells. 

When this was over, and his shrieks grew fainter, 
the Gorilla King looked round at Phil. His scowl 
was horrible, but he tried to subdue it as best he 
could. Nature had commanded that Phil should be 
treated as an honoured guest, and even he dare 
not outwardly disobey. So he rose from his dank 

grass throne and curtly invited Phil to walk 

242 



A Friend in the Jungle 

beside him. Phil noticed that in attempting to 
stand ereft he did not stoop so much as Kamba, for 
his arms were longer, and he could thus more easily 
steady himself by these. He remarked, too, that 
he rested the black palms of his hands flat on the 
ground, while Kamba used his knuckles, for he 
could not hold his hand out straight as gorillas do. 

Phil tried his hardest to think of something to 
say as they strolled along, "for he knew that it was 
very bad manners to appear dull in his host's com- 
pany. The Gorilla did not give him much help; he 
grunted " yes " or " no " indifferently to every ques- 
tion, sighing and groaning, and beating his breast 
from time to time as if he were sick of himself and 
all the world. When at last Phil induced him to talk 
a little, he did it with a very bad grace. 

Gorillas lived in family groups, he told him 
morosely, not in communities like chimpanzees, 
"who loved the sound of their own voices far too 
well." The females were inclined to spoil their 
young, but he, the King, was there to see to that. 
243 Q2 



In Nature's School 

His will was law, and no one dare gainsay it. 

"The Elders talk, but I never listen,'' he added 
grimly, as he spoke of the "councils" that he held 
on special occasions. "I do as I like, and care for 
nobody. Might is right." 

" Why do you yell so loudly in the early morn- 
ings? " Phil ventured to inquire. 

"Ask Nature," returned the Gorilla bitterly. 
"Perhaps she knows — we don't. What right has 
she to make chimpanzees more like to Man than 
us, who are stronger than they, and far more ter- 
rible? Their teeth are not like tusks, as ours are, and 
they have no bony crests upon their skulls to mark 
them out as belonging to the Apes. Look at the 
thumbs, too, on my hinder feet — many a native lad 
in days gone by, who ventured unknowingly be- 
neath the tree in which I hid, have I slain by catch- 
ing his throat with these and squeezing his life 
out. Yet I would give my thumbs up willingly 
could I have feet like yours! " 

He looked at Phil's pink toes with so much envy 

244 



i 



A Friend in the Jungle 

that his small companion was glad to sink them in 
the damp moss on which they trod. The Gorilla 
noticed his action, and his face was contorted into 
an ugly sneer. 

"Where do you stay in the night time?" he 
demanded, as if struck by a new thought. 

"With the Chimpanzees," Phil answered. 
"They're very kind andfriendly.I like Prince Chim, 
and, except for my dear beavers, I am fonder of 
Kamba than any other animal I have met." 

He was not prepared for the effect of his words. 
Bounding forward as if he had been struck, the 
Gorilla fell into a paroxysm of rage, and such a 
volume of sound poured from his deep chest that 
Phil thought it must surely be rent in two. Roar 
after roar echoed like thunder through the forest; 
the chattering monkeys fled to a safer distance, 
and birds dashed out of their nests in a panic of 
alarm. 

It seemed long to Phil before the uproar sub- 
sided and there was silence again. The Gorilla had 
245 



In Nature's School 

thrown himself on the ground, and the size of his 
huge body struck Phil afresh. 

"If I had my way," muttered the King, rais- 
ing himself slowly, " I would kill every animal in 
the jungle. Then at last should I be at peace, for 
there would be none left for me to hate.'* 

After this there was quiet for a time. With 
sullen languor the Gorilla King led Phil towards 
the innermost depths of the jungle, forcing his 
way in the semi-twilight— -for deep in the jungle 
it is always dusk — through thorn and thicket, and 
the serpent-like trails of creeper that would have 
barred his way. Strange creatures, yet unnamed by 
man, gazed at Phil furtively from behind the 
bushes; spiders and crawling reptiles, horrible to 
behold, thronged round his pathway, and above 
all rose the mist of the poisonous miasma that was 
as the breath of life to the Gorilla King. 

The beautiful gold- winged bird that Phil when 
he first came had fancied must be a fairy princess 

with an emerald necklace, was disturbed by their 

246 



A Friend in the Jungle 

approach, and darted out from an Eucalyptus tree. 
With one swift movement of his long arm the 
Gorilla clutched her; another second, and he tossed 
aside a mass of burnished feathers, draggled and 
limp, while a grin of fiendish pleasure lit up his 
gloomy eyes. 

It faded suddenly. A sound so slight as to be 
quite unheard by Phil had fallen on his ears. His 
body stiffened, and the tufts of hair above his 
lowering brows erefted themselves fiercely. His 
features twitched; Phil feared another outburst, 
and looked in vain to see what had aroused him. 

Someone was treading the swampy ground. The 
Gorilla King rushed forward, crashing through 
the branches in his mad haste, and making for the 
natural gap in the undergrowth whence the sound 
had come. Phil stood transfixed with horror, for a 
young white-helmeted hunter, little more indeed 
than a boy, was treading the tangled jungle with 
the calm assurance of one who was accustomed to 

roam through an English wood. 

247 



In Nature s School 

Baleful green fires shot from the Gorilla's eyes, 
and with a roar more awful than any that Phil 
had heard from him yet, he sprang across the open 
space, where the young hunter, too startled to 
swerve aside, faced him undauntedly. Snatching 
the rifle from his hands, the Gorilla broke it in two 
as if it had been dry tinder; then turned to tear its 
owner limb from limb. 

That moment's pause to break the rifle, brief as 
it was, meant death to the mighty king, for a second 
hunter followed in the wake of the first, and a 
quick glance showed him the peril of his young 
companion. The same instant his rifle rang out and 
the shot went straight to the great beast's 
heart. 

With his hideous lips still twisted in an exultant 
cry of rage, and tusk- like fangs bared ready to bury 
in his victim's flesh, the Gorilla fell to earth with 
a convulsive shudder. He was quite dead. A ghoul- 
like spider sprang out of his lair, and crept beneath 

the hollow of his back. 

248 



A Friend in the Jungle 

The hunters looked at each other without 
speaking. 

"It is well to have a friend in the jungle," said 
the young one at last. The other's face was as white 
as his helmet. He touched the prostrate form with 
the tip of his boot. 

"We'll take his skin back, anyhow," he said. 

The hunters set about their task, and Phil hur- 
ried away, trying to throw off the loneliness that 
oppressed him. Evil-eyed scorpions glared at him 
fiercely, but dared not venture near. A huge black 
panther, twisting his sinuous body through a mass 
of thorn trees, crouched low as if to spring, while 
giant Anacondas, twining round the distorted 
branches of great trees, writhed their shining 
folds as if they longed to crush him. It was like a 
nightmare, and in spite of himself Phil almost 
screamed aloud. 

Then, in a single instant, all was changed. Kamba, 
his friend, was hastening towards him through the 

trees, a dread that he would not acknowledge lurk- 

249 



In Nature's School 

ing in his troubled eyes. When he saw Phil he 
greeted him with the greatest joy. 

" At last ! '' he cried. " I have been searching for 
you for hours. Why did you stay so long away? I 
have been sad and anxious." 

He listened gravely while Phil told him what 
had happened. 

"So the white hunters have found their way 
here," he said. "I do not think that they will lin- 
ger. For them these mists are poisonous, and fever 
lurks in every bush. . . . You are quite sure that 
the Gorilla King was killed? It may have been that 
he was but shamming death, that his foes might 
come near, and die together. It would be like him." 

But Phil was quite sure that the Gorilla King 
could harm no one now. Already the news was 
winging its way through the jungle; there were 
none to bewail his untimely end, save his own kin- 
dred, and even they did not seem much disturbed. 
To them, as to all other living things, he had been 

fierce and cruel. 

250 



A Friend in the Jungle 

" His son will reign in his stead, and keep his 
family together," Kamba remarked, as he and Phil 
swung themselves from branch to branch, prefer- 
ring that method of travelling to treading the spongy- 
swamp beneath. "There is but little to choose 
between him and his father, I am sorry to say, for 
all gorillas are much alike. The best way to deal 
with such savage creatures is to leave them alone. 
They have given way so often to their temper and 
jealousy, that now it is their very nature to sulk. 
You never sulk, I hope," he added, stopping to give 
Phil an affe6lionate hug. " It's a dreadful habit, and 
grows on one quite soon. And there's something 
so mean and small about it — a sulky animal is 
detested everywhere, and no one can find a good 
word to say for him." 

Phil glanced away to call a beautiful little Ken- 

dro — a tiny squirrel said to be the smallest in the 

world — and then showed Kamba a very pink face, 

and honest grey eyes that looked merry as well as 

ashamed. 
251 



In Nature s School 

"P'raps I did sulk a little at school," he said, 
"and I s'pose that that was why they teased me so 
— that, and because I was afraid. I shan't be now. 
What did you say we were going to do to-night? " 

"There's the Carnival first, and then the Con- 
clave," Kamba said briskly. " Come along. The sun 
will be setting soon, and then it will grow dark 
almost at once." 

He made his way in a straight line to the great 
baobab tree in w^hich Phil had first seen Prince 
Chim. Beyond the shelter of its branches was a 
small irregular patch of ground, some two feet 
wide, covered with a thin surface of hardened clay. 
Kamba's own finger marks ran across it, as if he had 
patted it down while it was still wet and plastic. 

"We brought that clay from the river bank 
where the lilies grow," he said, wrinkling up his 
nose in a triumphant grin until it almost disappeared 
under his prominent eyebrows. " We spread it over 
a kind of peat, which is very porous, and it makes 
us a splendid drum. Listen ! " 

2 C2 




The wildest Antics 



A Friend in the Jungle 

He struck the queer drum quickly, first with 
one hand and then with the other, moving his 
arms in rapid succession, and swinging them from 
side to side; the hollow sound, though dull in tone, 
was loud enough to startle all the creatures of the 
jungle. It was the signal for the rest of the com- 
pany to break into the wildest antics; it really 
looked, Phil thought, as if they had all gone mad. 
They jumped and danced like goblins in a night- 
mare, swinging their bodies in a rude rhythm, and 
lifting up their voices in high rolling notes as if 
they were trying to sing. The louder Kamba 
pounded the drum, the more violent their move- 
ments became. When Kamba grew tired, another 
took his place; it seemed to be a post of honour, 
and was yielded in turn to all the young males 
who crowded round. 

Kamba's dancing was more weird than any. 
He bowed and swayed and twisted himself 
into the strangest contortions, turning up his 
eyes as if inspired. Phil spoke to him once. 



In Nature's School 

but he did not hear him. His mind was far 
away. 

The Carnival must have gone on for hours, 
when a sudden wind stirred through the leaves of 
the primeval forest. A distant roar, more full of 
menace than any sound that can proceed from 
brute or human lips, rolled up from the West; all 
living creatures in the jungle heard it, and knew 
the storm was coming. The thunder grew louder; 
it was nearer now, and the birds hid themselves 
under the thickest leaves. Then the rain swirled 
down in streams and torrents, dashing through the 
jungle greenery like a tidal wave sweeping all 
before it in its headlong course. 

The Champanzees rushed for shelter to the 
great baobab tree; and amongst its branches, with 
thunder still roaring all around, and zig-zag flashes 
of lightning darting through the sky, they held 
their Conclave when the rain had ceased. 



254 



1 



Chapter the Fourteenth 




''The White Queen'' 
HE storm had passed. The scent 
of lilies from the neighbouring 
river was borne on the rain- 
cleansed air, and a silver-throated 
bird voiced a soft thanksgiving 
that her nest had not been swept away. Prince 
Chim was looking very grave. After a long discus- 
sion they were no nearer a decision respecting their 
enemy, the Leopard; and the Princess, banished 
with her ladies to the upper boughs, looked down 
disdainfully with curling lips. Even the giant 
Baobab tree had not altogether protefted her from 
the rain, and as she shook the last drops from her 
parted hair she expressed her contempt for the com- 
pany beneath in audible tones. 



In Nature's School 

"The Prince has been talking for hours; yet all 
he can say is that we must 'aft together'— as if we 
ever did anything else ! " she remarked to Phil, who 
had been sitting beside her for some time. " Why 
doesn't he plan to take the Leopard by surprise? " 

Prince Chim, as he paused for breath, caught 
her words distinftly. With a perfeftly impassive 
face he took up her idea as if it had been his own. 

" Let us meet guile by guile," he said, " and take 
the Leopard by surprise. One of our young ones shall 
lay himself at the foot of a tree some distance from 
our usual haunts, and feign sleep. A band of our 
strongest males will hide themselves in the bushes 
close at hand. Kamba, my son, shall head them; 
when the Leopard draws near they will fall upon 
him, and the wild beasts of the jungle will learn 
what happens to those who dare to touch a Chim- 
panzee." 

The end of his speech was drowned with shouts 

of approval, and the Princess, quite satisfied now, 

applauded as loudly as any of them. 

256 



The White Queen 

"That is always the way," she confided to Phil. 
"I put things into his head, and he gets all the 
credit." 

The Carnival, the Conclave, or the storm — 
perhaps all three — seemed to have exhausted the 
energy of Kamba. He was very dull next morning 
and let Phil wander off alone while he settled him- 
self in a banana tree, so that he could eat or sleep 
at his pleasure. 

"Go and see the Termites," he murmured 
drowsily," if you want to meet industrious creatures. 
Fm lazy to-day. The Banded Mungous will take 
you if you ask her. I must rest for to-night, that I 
may have the strength of ten. The leopard has eyes 
that burn, and his teeth are swords." 

Phil easily found the Banded Mungous. He was 
guided to her by the sound of her chattering, and 
the queer little croaks which seemed to be her 
expressions of satisfaftion. She was a small animal 
about the size of the Lady Ondatra, and her 
grizzled fur was tastefully decorated with bands of 

257 R 



In Nature's School 

a darker colour. Her eyes were amber and very 
brilliant, and she had a dear little pointed nose that 
looked as if it were made to be poked into everyone's 
business. Her movements were as quick as Feather- 
tail's, as she ran gaily down the branches of a tree 
when she saw Phil coming. 

" Kamba said that I would take you to see the 
Termites?" she exclaimed. "How like a male 
thing! I suppose he thought I had nothing to do, 
and such a hot day, too!" 

Phil's face fell. He had heard so much about the 
Termites, and wanted particularly to see their 
home. The Mungous relented at once when she 
noticed his disappointment. 

"Of course I'll take you, dear boy!" she cried. 
"Any friend of Nature's is a friend of mine. The 
question is, how? For you are certainly too large 
for me to carry." 

" Not at all," said Phil, as he felt himself shrink- 
ing rapidly. The Mungous looked at him with mild 

surprise. 

258 



The White Queen 

"Ex-tra-ordinary!" she cried, "and how con- 
venient! I can do something in that line myself, as 
you may see. Jump on my back, and ofF we'll go." 

Before Phil had time to do this a long black snake 
wriggled out of a hollow tree, where he had just 
swallowed a small bird. He glanced at the Mun- 
gous, and made as if to glide away. But she was too 
quick for him. With a sudden pounce she sprang 
at the back of his head with a scream of anger, 
puffing out her small body until it was nearly 
twice as large as it should be. The snake, surprised, 
put out his poisoned fangs, which the Mungous 
eluded by jumping from side to side, giving him 
sharp bites whenever she could reach him. Enraged 
at her pertinacity, he coiled his folds around her, 
when she at once shrank back to her usual size and 
slipped away between them. Darting at his throat, 
she made her sharp teeth meet, until the sinuous 
folds relaxed and he was dead. The Mungous 
dragged his still writhing body out of the path, as 
if she were very well pleased with herself. 

259 R2 



In Nature's School 

"I've had my eye on him for some time," she 
said, as Phil perched behind her. "The number of 
birds these reptiles eat is shocking. They don't 
leave any for honest families." 

Phil thought it best not to ask her what a Mun- 
gous lived on, and gave himself up to enjoying his 
novel ride. His fiery steed ran on at a great pace, 
diving under creepers and bushes until the rough- 
ness of Phil's hair v^ould have horrified any 
Matron, however kind. Her little feet pattered 
on and on; a white-faced pig looked at her with 
sour disapproval, and a hedgehog, over which she 
had scrambled before she saw him, asked her 
crossly who was after her. 

"The Wind!" she cried; and did not stop until 
she reached the edge of the jungle. Here she paused 
to sniff. 

"I really believe I can smell the sea," she said, 
" though it would take us days to get there. Do you 
see that dome-shaped citadel on the plain? That is 
the Termites' nest, so you'll soon be there." 

260 



The White Queen 

Within a short distance of the great clay-built 
structure, which was certainly more than six feet 
high, she nodded and left him. Phil, growing smaller 
and smaller still, until a blade of grass seemed taller to 
him than a lamp-post would be in an ordinary way, 
looked round for some door to knock at, but could 
see none. So he sat himself down under the wel- 
come shade of a small green leaf, and there waited 
patiently, staring at the white citadel in front of 
him with all his might. 

While he watched it a strange thing happened. 
An animal encased in sharp and keen-edged horny 
plates, overlying each other from the beginning of 
his head to the tip of his tail, crawled languidly 
along the plain. He was quite five feet in length, 
but more than half of this was his spiky tail, which 
tapered off from his body without any definite 
beginning. His tiny head was thin and pointed, and 
his eyes glittered like diamonds as he surveyed the 
Ant hill thoughtfully, wondering to find himself 

there at such an unusual hour of the day. Presently 

261 



In Nature's School 

he gave his tail a gentle shake, and delicately ex- 
tended a short and powerful foreleg, armed with a 
huge claw, with which he struck the Citadel wall. 
Encouraged by a slight crumbling of the clay, he 
set to work with more energy, digging his claws 
into the strong wall with a force of which Phil had 
not thought him capable. Some sound that was 
inaudible to Phil made him suddenly desist; he 
seemed to listen, then rolled himself up into 
a ball, tucking his head between his paws, just as 
the Urson did. His sharp scales pointed outwards, 
and made a strong defence against the enemy. 
Hearing nothing further, he uncurled himself, and 
proceeded methodically with his work. 

A little black beetle, now quite a giant to Phil, 
was watching him too from a spear of grass. 

" H e's the Lon g-tailed Manis," he said, mouthing 

his words as if he liked the sound of them, "and 

belongs to the illustrious family of the Anteaters, 

the Armadillos, and the Duckbills, all famous, I 

believe, in natural history. The White Ants, or 

262 



The White Queen 

Termites, are his favourite food, and he'll go to 
any trouble to get them. The clay walls of their 
citadel are very thick, but his claws will be through 
in another moment." 

" Where does he live? " asked Phil. 

"In a burrow he digs for himself, where he is 
safe from everyone. He usually sleeps until the 
evening, but I suppose that the storm kept him at 
home last night, and that now he is hungry. There! 
he has done it at last. The sentinel ants have given 
the alarm, and you'll see the soldiers pouring out 
of the breach in their thousands." 

It was as he had said. Two or three Termites 
first appeared, as if to find out what had happened; 
they returned to the fortress to bear the news, and 
almost immediately myriads of enraged "soldiers," 
tumbling over each other in their eagerness to be 
first, poured out of the hole. 

"Those are the 'soldier' ants, and quite blind," 

murmured the beetle, " so they can only feel their 

way. If the Long-tailed Manis were not so well 
263 



In Nature's School 

prote6led by his suit of mail, he would not dare to 
storm their castle. They are fierce as lions, and draw 
their own weight in blood from any animal on 
which they fasten." 

The savage little creatures met with scant mercy 
from the Manis. Darting out his long, snake-like 
tongue, which was covered, Phil could see, with 
some gummy substance, he licked them in by hun- 
dreds, with every sign of keen enjoyment. "The 
more the merrier " his diamond eyes declared, when 
a repetition of the sound that had first startled him 
turned his pleasure to alarm. 

"What is it? Can you hear?" Phil asked the 
Beetle, as the Manis, with one more hasty lick at the 
swarming ants, made away as fast as his legs could 
carry him, which seemed very slow to Phil. 

"It was the distant shout of a native," said the 

Beetle, listening intently, "but I don't think he is 

coming this way. Watch, now, and you will see the 

soldiers go back into the fortress and the labourers 

coming to repair the damage." 

264 



The White Queen 

"'Soldiers/ and 'labourers,'" said Phil." How 
queer it sounds when you're speaking of ants! " 

" Insefts have much more skill and intelligence 
than you seem to think," said the Beetle rather 
huffily. " I could tell you things in my own family 
that would perhaps surprise you more. There are 
the labourers — they haven't lost much time." 

Moving closer to the Ant hill, Phil looked on 
with amazement as crowds of ants, much smaller 
than the soldiers, and able to see, hastened from 
every direftion towards the breach in the wall, each 
bearing a load of mortar, which he placed on the 
edge of the damaged portion, and then went off 
for more. 

It was marvellous to see in what perfe6l order 
everything was done, without either hurry or con- 
fusion; each ant kept to the tiny space on which he 
was working, though he had constantly to pass and 
re-pass his fellow labourers to fetch more clay. The 
Beetle, pacified by Phil's admiration, advised him 

to make himself known to one of the Termites, as 

265 



In Nature^ s School 

the inside of the Citadel was more wonderful still. 

Just at this moment Phil had rather a narrow es- 
cape. One of the labourers, mistaking him for an ant 
belonging to a species with which the Termites 
were at war, hastily summoned a soldier, who 
rushed at him with open mouth and nearly fixed 
his fangs into his throat. He seemed almost sorry 
when he found out his mistake, for after the con- 
duct of the Manis he was longing for a fight. 

" I suppose I must take you round," he remarked 
grudgingly, " though it isn't a soldier's duty. But of 
course, if Nature sent you — ?" 

"She did," said Phil very firmly; and the soldier 
led him down one of the many subterranean pas- 
sages, beautifully lined with clay, and often nearly a 
foot across, that ran in a sloping direction from the 
foot of the Ant hill three or four feet down into the 
earth. With even more twists and turns than the 
galleries in the Hackees' burrow, these were carried 
upward again, and at the entrance to the fortress 
were connefted with an amazing number of galleries 

266 



The White Queen 

which wound round the whole building up to the 
top. The upper part, his guide told Phil, was princi- 
pally built for the sake of keeping the lower portion 
sufficiently warm and moist for the eggs and larvas. 

Phil's importance was greatly increased in the 
soldier's eyes when they were met in the entrance 
by a messenger from the Termite Queen, com- 
manding his attendance in the Royal apartment. 

This was built on the ground floor, in the very 
centre of the Ant hill, and was surrounded by 
elaborate cells and galleries, which were used as 
nurseries and store rooms. Here the White Queen 
lived with her consort, practically a prisoner, since 
her extraordinary habit of growing larger every 
day made it impossible for her to get through the 
door. The Royal apartment was constantly being 
enlarged by her devoted subje6ts, who found it all 
that they could do to keep pace with her. 

Her Majesty received Phil graciously, and con- 
gratulated him on being Nature's guest. 

"Nature has done a great deal for us," she said, 
267 



In Nature's School 

"and we are grateful to her. I should say that Ants 
have more brains in proportion to their size than 
any other living creature." 

She did not seem very much attached to her con- 
sort, who was smaller than she and rather pensive. 

" In a very short time," she said, looking at him 
with disapproval, '' that Ant will die, and I shall 
then have nothing to distrad: my attention from 
growing. When I have attained my full size — that 
is, when I am as large as thirty thousand of my 
labourers rolled into one — I shall start laying my 
eggs, at the rate of fifty or sixty a minute, working 
steadily at this, both night and day,f or two full years. 

"As soon as my eggs are laid, my attendants will 
carry them off to the nurseries, where they will be 
kept at the right heat until they are hatched, and 
then fed and tended until they can look after them- 
selves. Captain Bellicos will show you the nurseries 
after you have left me." 

"I think your soldiers are very brave," said 

Phil, when the Captain had retired out of earshot. 

268 



The White Queen 

"That goes without saying," remarked the 
White Queen grandly. " I have one soldier to every 
hundred labourers. You will know them by their 
long sharp jaws and enormous heads, and by their 
courage. They think nothing of attacking a human 
being if he gets in their way, and are quite capable 
of driving him out of his home. Soldiers (neuters) 
are each as large as fifteen labourers (larvs), while 
the perfeft Termites, male and female, are twice 
the size of the soldiers. Captain Bellicos, take our 
visitor round the fortress, and offer him some 
refreshment." 

Phil thanked her gratefully as he withdrew, but 
as he happened to know that wood was the Termites' 
standard food, he did not think that he would take 
anything. He remembered hearing once how Ter- 
mite ants attacked an oak door and left it hollow 
within a few hours, and that no woods except iron- 
wood and ebony could resist their ravages. 

Captain Bellicos showed him round, as he had 

been dire(5ted, and Phil was more and more sur- 
269 



In Nature s School 

prised at the Termites' industry and skill as he saw 
the long, beautifully formed galleries and stately 
chambers. 

"We obey orders, do our best, and love our 
work," said Captain Bellicos. His work was fight- 
ing, and even as he ushered Phil through the sub- 
terranean passages, he was planning a fresh attack 
upon some enemies. 

The Banded Mungous had very kindly come 
back for Phil, and was poking about amongst the 
grass when he crept out. At first she did not recog- 
nise him; when she did, she watched him growing 
larger with envious eyes. 

" What wouldn't I give to be able to do that," 
she sighed. "Stay as you are now — I'm rather 
tired, and don't want more to carry than I can help." 

Kamba met him at the edge of the jungle and 
Phil noticed again how curiously he moved. He 
used his arms more as if they were crutches than 
limbs, and jerked himself forward in the oddest 

way. "Had a good time?" he inquired genially, 

270 



The White Queen 

much refreshed after his idle day. "The young 
Gorilla King has been inquiring after you. You 
had better go round at once/' 

"I s'pose ril have to go, as he is King of the 
jungle?" Phil said, with a deep sigh. But Kamba 
was only trying to tease, and Phil ran laughingly 
away from him to play with White-Nose again. 

Darkness gathered over the forest before he 
knew. He was tired with play, and the great Bao- 
bab tree, beneath which he had meant to sleep 
that night, was quite a mile away. The venerable 
White-Nose invited him to spend the night with 
them. 

"The Chimpanzees are on the war-path,'* he 
said, for all the monkeys were in the secret, " and 
Kamba is much too busy to think of you. If you 
stay with us you will be quite safe, and the night 
wind is sure to tell him where you are." 

So Phil settled down between the baby White- 
Nose and a dear little sister of his called Katma. She 

made friends with him in the most charming way, 
271 



In Nature's School 

and chattered artlessly, until the venerable White- 
Nose drily reminded her that there were other 
Monkeys in that tree as well as she. 

Soon Katma herself was asleep. A night owl 
hooted, and the monotonous croak of the bull 
frogs sounded very dismal. Phil wished after all 
that he had gone back to the Chimpanzees; he 
would have slept much more comfortably on the 
ground, or perhaps Kamba might have let him go 
with him to watch for the Leopard. 

No stars looked down to keep Phil company, 
though during the last night's storm a thunder- 
bolt had made a gap in the trees through which 
he could see the sky. The darkness stifled him; he 
longed to cry out aloud, for with a new sense that 
seemed to have come to him since he had lived in 
the jungle, he felt there was some dreaded creature 
near. 

Hark! What was that? The rustle of a leaf on 
the path that led from the haunts of the pythons. 
Another rustle — and yet another. Some animal 

272 



The White Queen 

was creeping through the undergrowth with steal- 
thy tread; now fiery eyes, suspended in the gloom, 
flamed into view; it was the Leopard. 

Phil waited until the eyes had passed; then he 
swung himself from tree to tree as White-Nose had 
shown him, and followed the sound of the rustling 
leaves on the ground below. It was so faint at times 
that unless Father Beaver had taught him how to 
listen he wouldnot have heard it; as it was, it guided 
him on until the undergrowth became less thick, 
and he and the stealthy creature he was following 
reached an open spot. Here the lightninghad killed 
two forest giants, whose branches stretched out 
helplessly, living and green-leaved still. 

The moon was shining now in the shrouded sky, 
and Phil could see the sleeping form of a Chim- 
panzee against one of the prostrate trunks. No 
other living thing seemed near, and Phil shuddered 
to think what would happen to the sleeper. 

The Leopard's movements grew more snake-like ; 
a quiver of longing passed over his lithe frame; his 
273 s 



In Nature s School 

great lips parted and showed his teeth. Sweet to a 
Leopard's taste is the blood of a Chimpanzee, and 
great the honour amongst the Cat tribe that awaits 
his slayer. 

There was still no sound but the Leopard's quick 
breathing. One leap, and the flesh of the Chim- 
panzee would be in his jaws. 

But as he crouched to spring, a great cry rent 
the air. From under the prostrate branches, and 
over the clustering vines, swarmed hairy figures 
whose eyes were as vengeful, and hearts as fierce, 
even as his own. 

The Leopard snarled, and began to move back- 
wards to the shelter of the thick undergrowth. Too 
late; he was surrounded by howling Chimpanzees, 
and at their mercy. 

Then ensued a scene which no eye could follow. 

The fierce animals became a snarling and tearing 

mass, which spun round, and over and over, like a 

whirlwind, for a few brief moments. The teeth 

and claws of the Leopard were of little use to him, 

274 




The Leopard 



14 



The White Queen 

although they left savage marks upon many of his 
enemies. He was overwhelmed by sheer force of 
weight and numbers; and there was little to show 
what he had once been when the rage of the 
Chimpanzees had spent its force. 

They left his skin beside the fallen trees. 

" It will serve as a warning to his tribe," re- 
marked Prince Chim, once more a polished old 
gentleman with pleasant manners. ''To trap him 
so was a good thought. It was well planned." 

The others applauded, and Chim looked pleased, 
as though all the credit belonged to him. The 
Princess, who had only appeared upon the scene 
when the battle was over, and was now, with all 
her Court, engaged in tending those who had 
suffered from the Leopard's claws, grinned at Phil 
as he helped to convey a wounded warrior to 
shelter. Kamba himself had escaped without a 
scratch, and seemed in very good spirits over the 
whole affair. 



275 



Chapter the Fifteenth 




''The Other Side of the World'' 

HIL wondered to which land the 
night wind had brought him. 
She had come for him so silently 
the night before, as he slept be- 
side Kamba under the great Bao- 
bab tree, that he had not felt her encircling arms, 
and was amazed this morning to find himself in a 
new country. The tangled undergrowth of the 
jungle had been very different from these grassy 
plains, that rippled away before him like an end- 
less sea, and instead of the steaming heat that had 
sometimes stifled him, his lungs were filled with 
pure fresh air that was a delight to breathe. 

In the scrub close by grew fragrant bushes of 
yellow blossoms that he had never seen before, 

276 



The Other Side 

and white and purple bloomed beside it on a low 
bush, close to the drooping branches of a wild 
cherry, whose foliage was a soft, bright green, as 
though it were springtime still. 

Yet it must be late in the autumn now, Phil 
knew, for he had heard from the night wind 
that in the woods at home the reddened leaves 
were falling from the trees, and that the swal- 
lows were already gathering high over fields of 
stubble, ready to start on their journey south. 

A gentle sound came from the thin forest that 
bordered the scrub. The stately trees grew wide 
apart, with dew-tipped grass between, and on one 
of these, comfortably tucked between the hollow 
of two branches, was a funny creature like a little 
rough-coated bear, about the size of a small bull 
terrier. His fur was a delicate grey, touched here 
and there with reddish brown, and tufts of long 
and silky hair spread over his ears. He explained 
to Phil in tones like a plaintive bark that he was 

the Koala, or Australian bear. 

277 



I 



In Nature s School 

"Can you climb?" he called anxiously. "Ah! 
that's all right. I was afraid I should have to come 
down to you on the ground, and I don't feel at 
home there. My feet, you'll notice, are formed 
for climbing. I have two sets of toes on my fore- 
paws — two inner and three outer — and four toes 
and a strong thumb on each of my hind feet, 
which are most useful. I always live in trees. My 
favourite — is the — Eu — ca — lyptus — I " 

He yawned and yawned; curled himself up 
more tightly, and the next moment was fast 
asleep. Phil put his arm round his neck and 
shook him vigorously. 

"You must talk to me!" he cried. "Yes — I 
know you're what they call 'a nodlurnal animal' 
and sleep by day. But just for once it won't hurt 
you to miss your bedtime — I always wanted to at 
home." 

"No," said the Koala tranquilly, "I don't sup- 
pose it will. I shall have another supper — that 's 

all." And he started nibbling one of the broad 

278 



The Other Side 

green leaves of the Eucalyptus, looking at Phil 
between-whiles with a comical expression of re- 
signed good nature. 

"The night wind told me to come this way," 
he remarked presently, "for she wanted you to 
see me. I am rather a rare animal now, and sel- 
dom met with in this district. A year ago I was 
carried about in my mother's pouch. When I first 
came out of it I clung to her back for a long time. 
But now I am independent, and it is grand to be 
able to stay on one gum tree as long as I like. 
Sometimes I don't stir for days. It saves so much 
trouble!" 

"I think you're rather a lazy little fellow," 
said Phil, pinching his muzzle, which was as soft 
as velvet. 

"They sometimes call me the Australian sloth," 
the Koala said with pensive pride. "But what 
is the use of hurrying when there is nothing to 
hurry for?" 

He looked, as he spoke, like a furry ball, and 

279 



In Nature s School 

the very pifture of tranquil content. Phil was 
rather surprised when his soft hair bristled, and 
he gave vent to a series of loud cries, most 
remarkably like those of an angry cat when it 
meets a rival on a moonlight stroll. The Koala 
yelled for about three minutes, dashing himself 
against the tree in his fury, and frightening all 
the birds. 

" Do tell me what it is all about! " urged Phil, 
when the exhausted little creature laid his head 
upon his shoulder like a baby, and panted for 
breath. 

"I don't really know," murmured the Koala. 
"Something annoyed me — I forget now. Let's 
go to sleep." 

Phil made several efforts to wake him, but 
found them useless. So he left him to his slum- 
bers, and went back to the plains, where he 
stretched himself out on the thick grass and 
waited to see what would happen. 

Very soon a big red Kangaroo lob-lobbed to- 

280 



The Other Side 

wards him. Her white teeth gleamed through 
her cleft lips, bat her soft full eyes gave her a 
very gentle expression. A broad w^hite mark ran 
straight up her face from the angle of her mouth, 
and her woolly fur was tinged with red. 

" We are very glad to see you," she said briskly, 
and as he looked at her more closely Phil saw a 
small head protruding from her pouch. It belonged 
to her baby, a fine little fellow about his own size, 
and so exactly like his mother, except for the 
white mark across her face, that he might have 
been her in miniature. 

" I 'm going to play about in the scrub," said the 
little Kangaroo gleefully to Phil, "while Mother 
shows you round. You'll find that pouch of hers 
most comfortable — I did not leave it for months 
when I first came." 

He beamed at Phil in a friendly fashion, and 

gave him a sharp box on one side of his face with 

his short forepaw. Phil hit back as best he could, 

and the two had a wrestling match. 
281 



In Nature's School 

"You're not bad at all," said the young Kanga- 
roo, patting him on his shoulder. " Let me see how- 
high you can jump. I shall beat you there." 

But Mrs Kangaroo objefted. 

"No, Rufus," she said firmly, "he has some- 
thing better to do just now than to romp with you. 
Remember what I have said — don't wander too 
far from the scrub, and if you see anything strange 
in the distance be oif at once to shelter." 

With a business-like air she caught Phil up 
with her forepaws, and tucked him into her pouch. 

"Youfit in nicely," she said with satisfaftion, 
and made off with him over the plains, each bound 
covering a distance of several yards. In spite of this 
she touched the earth so lightly that Phil was never 
shaken. The Kangaroo talked all the time. 

"That baby of mine is a fine little fellow, isn 't 
he?" she remarked. ("Mothers are all alike," 
thought Phil.) "You would scarcely believe it, 
perhaps, but at birth he was scarcely an inch and a 
quarter in length, measuring from the tip of his nose 

282 



The Other Side 

to the end of his tail, and as transparent as a scrap 
of white jelly. I put him into my pouch at once, 
and he lay there, warm and snug, for many months. 
He can feed himself now, as you would see if you 
watched him browsing under the trees, but he 
comes back to me still for a drink of milk, or if his 
little legs get tired. When springs and rivers dry up, 
as they often do here in Australia in times of 
drought, we have to travel long distances in search 
of water, and our young ones would never be able 
to keep up with us, or stand the fatigue of the jour- 
ney. So Nature gave us our pouches in order that 
we may carry our babies wherever we go, with 
as little fatigue to ourselves as possible." 

"Are there many kinds of Kangaroos?" asked 
Phil when she stopped for breath. 

"At least fifty distinft species," she answered, 

waving the great tail which she used to balance 

herself when she sat down, when with her two 

hind legs it formed a kind of tripod. 

"I belong to the Red Kangaroos, and, like all the 
283 



In Nature's School 

females of our kind, am very much smaller than 
my husband. 'Boomers,' as some of the largest 
Kangaroo males are called, are taller than the tallest 
men when they stand erefl: to see the country. 
When they are chased by dogs they can run 
for fully twenty miles without the least effort. 
A Boomer is very brave, and a foe to be dreaded, 
for the long and pointed claws with which our 
hinder feet are armed can cut like knives, and they 
will rip open the body of a hound at a single blow." 

"Hounds?" questioned Phil. 

The Kangaroo stopped to look over a low hill; 
the pasture lands beyond it were covered with 
sheep, but no human being was in sight. 

" Kangaroo hunting is a favourite sport in some 
parts of the country," she said with a deep sigh. 
"There is a special breed of hounds which men 
call 'Kangaroo dogs,' and these are trained to 
hunt us just as the fox is hunted in other countries. 
Well do I remember the first time that I ever saw 

them. My mate and I were browsing on some 

284 



The Other Side 

sweet, spring grass when we heard the sound of a 
distant bark. 

"The hounds!" he cried, springing to his full 
height; he was wiser than I, and knew that they 
were followed by men on horseback. He ordered 
me off to the bush at once, but not until he saw 
the number of those against him did he deign to 
flee himself. It was almost too late then, though 
his flying leaps covered a distance of many feet . . . 
They drove him to bay near Crystal Creek; the 
foremost hound was on him as he turned. Catch- 
ing him by the throat, the Boomer leapt into the 
water, and with one of his great hind feet held him 
under the water until he was drowned. Another, 
and yet another, shared the same fate; then, when 
the rest held back, and dare not follow, he swam 
across the bay, a distance of fully a mile and a 
half, and gained the shelter of the hills. Ah! how 
proud I was when the night wind told me what he 
had done ! Never a Boomer more brave than he. He 

met his fate a year ago; I mourn him still." 

285 



In Natures School 

As the Red Kangaroo paused to recover from 
her emotion, another cherry tree in full blossom 
drew Phil's attention, and he wonderingly re- 
marked that in England the cherry bloomed in 
Spring. 

"Well, and it is Spring with us," said the 
Kangaroo, rather astonished that he did not know. 
"We are at the other side of the world, so the 
seasons are reversed. Christmas day is midsummer 
here, and your midsummer is our coldest time of 
the year." 

" It is very strange," mused Phil. 

" So are most things when you come to think of 
them," said his companion. "Just look at that 
Tree Kangaroo! " 

They had reached a thin belt of forest trees by 
now, and down one of the tallest a glossy black 
Kangaroo was scampering with the ease of a 
Squirrel. As she heard voices she ran quickly up 
again and looked down at Phil from a tall branch 
with her very long black tail dangling beneath 

286 




Phil and the Kangaroo 



The Other Side 

her. Her forepaws were not nearly so short in pro- 
portion to her hind ones as were the Red Kanga- 
roo's, and her broad nose was covered with sparse 
hairs. 

" This is ' Mapi,' " said Mrs Kangaroo, with the 
air of a showman. "Observe her tail. She uses it 
principally as a balancing pole, and she can make 
it as stiff as a ramrod if she chooses. She camps 
entirely in the branches of trees, and goes to sleep 
with her head hanging on her breast between her 
forepaws. Creepers, ferns and fruit are what she 
lives on, and the natives think her flesh the greatest 
delicacy. They don't often get a chance of tasting 
it, I'm glad to say!" 

Both Kangaroos chuckled; before Phil could ask 
the Mapi any questions, his steed was off again. 

The next time she stopped it was to look at a 
Rat Kangaroo, a tiny lady about the size of the 
Ondatra. She was fast asleep in a nest so carefully 
hidden in the long grass that Phil could see no 

sign of her until the Red Kangaroo showed him 

287 



In Nature s School 

where to look. She was chiefly remarkable, as his 
guide explained, for her very long tail, the tip of 
which she could curl at will in the same way that 
monkeys do. 

"It is a great help to me," broke in the little 
thing. "When I was building my nest I made up 
a small bundle of dried grass every few minutes, 
twisted the tip of my tail round it, and hopped 
away home. All the materials I used for my nest 
I carried in this way." 

The day was her bedtime, and she was too 
drowsy to get up and let Phil see her. Before 
they went on again the Kangaroo pointed out 
to him the entrance to a burrov/ within a stone's 
throw of her nest. 

"The Wombat lives there," she said. "He is a 

clumsy looking animal, but quite amusing and 

harmless. He feeds on roots, and sleeps all day. If 

we woke him now he would only grunt; his 

burrow is very deep." 

Phil was next introduced to a pair of Brush 

288 



The Other Side 

Turkeys, who had built an enormous mound of 
decaying leaves and vegetable refuse as large as a 
hut, and many yards in width. This they had 
scraped together with their hind feet, which were 
extremely strong and armed with claws, and the 
hen had buried within it a number of eggs. These 
would soon be hatched by the heat of the decay- 
ing leaves. She seemed a very gay kind of mother, 
Phil thought, for she ran about chattering to any- 
one who would listen to her, while her mate waited 
gravely beside the mound, keeping open the hole 
that he had made in its centre, so that the eggs 
might not be hatched too quickly. 

"When the shells crack and the young birds 
appear," he said, "I shall see that they are care- 
fully covered for the first twelve hours. The next 
day, when their wing feathers will be well de- 
veloped, though still encased in a kind of sheath, I 
shall let them out. On the third day they will be 
ready to fly — and their mother must look after 

them then!" 

289 T 



In Nature s School 

The poor Turkey appeared quite harassed with 
family cares; not so the Lyre bird, who came next 
on the list of curious creatures whose acquaintance 
the Kangaroo was anxious that Phil should make. 
His hen, plain and homely in dull brown feathers, 
was rather like a gigantic wren, but the fantastic 
plumage of her mate's beautiful lyre-shaped tail 
was a thing to wonder at. 

"He's handsome, and he knows it," she said 
with a sigh; and while he leapt from the ground 
to a branch at least ten feet above him, she 
showed them one of the "corraborees," or raised 
earth platforms, which he had built for himself to 
dance on. 

" He flies from one to the other for hours at a 
time, dancing a few steps on each and showing 
himself off. But he 's a good nest-builder — I must 
say that for him." 

Phil looked at their nest, and thought it very 

fine. It was very large; dome-shaped, like the tiny 

wren's, it was roughly thatched with sticks and 

290 



The Other Side 

moss. Inside, on a lining of soft feathers, one 
purple-grey egg reposed in state, all by itself. 

"I never lay more than one," she said. "He 
thinks that quite enough." 

"Come away — come away! " cried the Kanga- 
roo at last. "The Piping Crows and the Casso- 
waries are waiting to see you, and then there are 
the Duckbill Platybus and the Spiny Ant-eater, to 
say nothing of Frilled Lizards and Tasmanian 
Devils!" 

Long before Phil had seen all these, however, 
she was anxious to return to her beloved son. 

"Don't you think that you could manage now 
by yourself?" she said. "I don't like to leave you, 
but Rufus will be thirsty, and — you are sure that 
you don't mind ? " She hardly waited for him to 
answer before she was ofF and away, and Phil 
stood gazing after her with much sympathy, for 
he guessed that Rufus would be up to mischief. 

It was evening now. The Kangaroo had left 

him on the borders of a forest, where giant gum 
291 



In Nature s School 

trees clashed their strips of bark as the night wind 
rustled their mighty branches, and the thickets of 
Acacia were a quivering mass of scented blossom 
swaying in the moonlight. 

The first thing that Phil noticed was a greenish- 
brown lizard on one of the branches — -just an 
ordinary lizard, he seemed to him, and he gave 
him a gentle poke. 

"Wake-up," he said, "and tell me who you are." 
The Lizard did "wake-up," and Phil actually 
jumped with surprise when, instead of the meek 
and inoffensive animal that he had believed him 
to be, he saw a fierce creature with a huge frill, 
some eight to ten inches in diameter, erected round 
his neck, eyes blazing, and a widely opened mouth 
that was outlined with red. His tongue and the 
linings of his throat were of a vivid yellow; and 
scarlet, and orange, and bright steel blue chased 
each other in that part of his frill which covered 
his neck and chest. On seeing Phil his anger 

gradually subsided. 

292 



The Other Side 

"So it's you, is it?'' he said. "Why did you 
disturb me so ? I was having a beautiful dream — 
hundreds of insects on one branch, and no trouble 
to get them." 

"What is that thing round your neck?" asked 
Phil, replying to one question by another. 

The Lizard gradually allowed it to subside. 

"It is what they call my 'scare organ,'" he said. 
" I puff it up if any animal attempts to molest me, 
and so scare it off. Dogs will have nothing to say 
to me — they think I am 'uncanny,' and creep 
away with their tails between their legs, as if I 
were going to bite them. I wish I could!" 

He ran excitedly, in an erect position, for a dis- 
tance of fifteen yards, his hind legs widely separated, 
and his now drooping frill looking ridiculously 
like the wig of some undignified Lord Chancellor. 
Phil's attention was suddenly distracted from him 
by extraordinary noises that came from the hollow 
stump of a tree close by. Snarling and snapping, 
and scolding each other in all but words, two 
293 



In Nature s School 

jet-black creatures, splashed here and there with 
white, dashed out of the deep burrow they had 
made through the hollow, and continued their 
dispute above ground, though their blinking eye- 
lids showed that they hated even so gentle a light 
as that of the moon. Phil had often heard how 
ugly a quarrel appeared to lookers on, but he had 
never quite realized it until now. 

"These are Tasmanian Devils," hissed the 
Lizard, whose frill was fully erect again, from the 
shelter of a high branch. "They live up to their 
name, for a more spiteful and ferocious set of 
creatures I have never heard of in all my life. Look 
at them now." 

They were not a pretty sight, as they bit and 
tore each other's throats. Phil quite believed the 
Lizard when he told him that the enormous 
havoc they wrought amongst sheep and poultry 
made the colonists their bitter foes. 

He was glad to move away from the neigh- 
bourhood of their angry voices, and presently 

294 



The Other Side 

found himself beside the banks of a wide river. 
Its shining depths mirrored the twinkling stars, 
and the soft lapping of the water was the only 
sound. 

Here he met the Duckbill Platybus — one of 
the most extraordinary creatures, the night wind 
told him, to be found in any land. He was a 
small animal covered with thick brown fur; his 
body was long and narrow, his tail wide and 
flattened; and his feet, enormous for his size, had 
broad webbed toes, all armed with claws. On his 
fore-feet, which he used for digging as well as 
swimming, these were wide and blunt, and very 
powerful; on the hind feet they were pointed and 
very sharp. But it was the beak-like charafter 
of the Duckbiirs mouth that made him so peculiar. 
This was flattened and broad, covered with a sensi- 
tive skin that looked like black velvet tipped and 
spotted with pink. When Phil came up to him he 
was busily engaged in rooting about the bank, 

filling his cheek pouches with a choice collection 
295 



In Nature s School 

of water insects which he meant to eat at his 
leisure. On seeing him, the Duckbill stopped at 
once, and generously offered to share an unusually 
fat worm which he had just bitten in half. Phil 
was spared the pain of refusing him by the appear- 
ance of two young Duckbills, who jumped play- 
fully on their father's back, and then rolled over 
like sportive kittens. 

"Mother says," they cried, both speaking to- 
gether, " that you're to bring HIM down to break- 
fast. She wants to show him over the house." 

"The morning's my breakfast time," Phil 
explained hastily, hoping that he would not be 
offered any more worms, while the Duckbill swal- 
lowed a fat beetle as if it were a delicious oyster. 

Mrs Duckbill met Phil on the threshold of the 

burrow, and bade him welcome with so much 

grace that he was reminded of the Lady Ondatra. 

She was rather smaller than her husband, and very 

sprightly. 

" It's a treat to see a new face," she said, allow- 

296 



The Other Side 

ing him to stroke her bill with evident pleasure. 

"We are such stay-at-homes that few of our 
neighbours have any idea how distinguished we 
really are." 

The burrow through which she led him was 
very long and deep, and ended in a spacious 
chamber, furnished very plainly with a bed of 
dried weeds, roughly put together. 

"It was here," she said modestly, " that I laid my 
snow-white eggs, and sat upon them until they were 
hatched, as my pouch was not quite large enough 
to hold them. Such funny little things my babies 
were," she continued, when she had shown him 
the second entrance to the burrow, which was 
well under water. "Not a single hair had they 
between them, and their soft little beaks 
you could have broken with one finger. 
They had a narrow escape, poor little mites, 
when I took them out for their first airing. We 
were playing on the river banks, when we were 
surprised by the owner of the salmon fisheries, 
297 



In Nature s School 

who is always complaining that we disturb the 
spawn. Before I had time to get them away he 
seized them roughly, and they would have been 
lost to me for ever had it not been for my brave 
mate. When he saw what was happening he flew 
towards us, and made the spurs in his hind feet 
meet in the flesh of the thief s right hand. He 
dropped my babies with a cry of pain, and we all 
scampered off. We can move as quickly on land 
as we can under water, and once we reach our 
burrows no one can follow us." 

The father Duckbill had joined them now, and, 
while he emptied his cheek pouches, Phil made 
his excuses and hurried ofi^. The way that worm 
had wriggled had taken away his appetite; and it 
is always difficult to refuse well-meant hospitality 
without giving offence. 

He had left the river bank some distance behind 

when he ran up against another queer animal, 

who was actively engaged in digging out an Ants' 

nest 

298 



The Other Side 

"Good evening — -good evening, "shesaid breath- 
lessly, raising her plump little body, the hair of 
which was so thickly mingled with spiny quills 
that she might almost have been a porcupine. " I 
overslept myself, and am in a desperate hurry to 
get something to eat. I am generally up by 
dusk." 

Phil sat down and watched the earth fly round 
at each stroke of her claws. Very soon the nest 
was laid bare, and with every sign of keen enjoy- 
ment she licked up the succulent larvas with her 
very long and slender tongue, calmly ignoring the 
ferocious ants. 

''There!" she said, when her hunger was satis- 
fied. "Now what do you want to know?" 

"All about you," replied Phil, promptly; but 
the Spiny Anteater, who meant to attack another 
Ant hill when she had got rid of Phil, laughed 
and shook her funny little head. 

"That would take me too long," she said, "but 

ril show you what we do when we fear danger." 
299 



In Nature s School 

And she promptly made herself into a ball like the 
hedgehog, and rolled away. 

Phil thought that she had gone, but she came 
back in a moment with an unsteady shuffling 
gait, to show him the cunning little pouch where 
she carried her eggs, which she hatched by the 
heat of her body. 

"If you watch me now,'' she said, "you'll see 
how quickly we can burrow. The colonists are 
far too fond of eating us, nicely baked, and as our 
dispositions are retiring we do not care for this." 

As she spoke, she was digging the strong claws 
on each of her five-toed feet into the loose soil. 
They moved so quickly beneath her plump little 
body that she appeared to sink in the sand almost 
as though it were water, and in a moment or two 
was out of sight. Phil had had rather an exciting day, 
and began to feel very sleepy. So he was now glad 
to accept the invitation of a big brown bird who 
called to him from a tree near by, and amiably 

found him a place beside her nestlings. Here he slept 

300 



The Other Side 

soundly, until his feathered companions responded 
to the first gleams of the morning sun with their 
usual notes of joyful greeting. 

Many other strange beasts did Phil meet with 
as he wandered over the plains and through the 
bush, sleeping at night in some grassy hollow, or 
curled beside a Sugar Squirrel in the fork of a tree. 
He was interested in them all, but every day the 
longing for his own country grew stronger upon 
him; the bleating of the sheep in the pasture lands 
he sometimes skirted made him sick for "home." 

This did not pass unnoticed by Nature, but there 
were other lessonsthat Phil had yet to learn, and the 
fierce heat of summer gave place to autumn before 
thenight wind came. It was for thelast time, and she 
sighed gently as she bore him over the sea; but Phil 
smiled in his sleep, tor Nature had told him in his 
dreams that he would soon see England once more. 



301 



Chap 




ter the Sixteenth 

Home Again 
WEET and clear came the song of 
a soaring lark to Phil as he slept 
under a May tree. 

JVhit^ whit, whit, whit, whit, whit, whee-ee — 
No shoemaker can make boots for me-ee! 
Why? why? why? why? why? why? why so? 
Because my heel's as long as my toe-o! 

Higher and higher she winged her flight, singing 
as she rose, and Phil opened his eyes and looked 
about him. Afield of buttercups like cloth of gold, 
spangled with star-white daisies, told him that he 
was back in England, and the merry little brook 
that tinkled its way over the stones in the ditch was 
a dear old friend of his. 

The birds were holding festival. It was their 
wedding season, and as they flew from perfumed 

hawthorn to elm and beech there was a proud dis- 

302 



Home Again 

play of new Spring finery. The little blue tit, intent 
upon charming his small mate, had borrowed the 
vivid tints of the forget-me-not; the reed-sparrow 
had thrown off the sober brown cap he had worn 
all through the winter, and his black crown shone 
with many colours as he moved his little head. Even 
cock-robin's breast glowed with a hue that was 
brighter than at any other time. 

Close to Phil's elbow was the nest of the sky- 
lark; it lay low on the ground, behind two tussocks 
of coarse grass, and was fashioned daintily of 
twisted twigs. Scraps of moss and tufts of feathers 
had been used to line its smooth interior, and here, 
overshadowed by crowding field flowers anxious 
to share the sky-lark's secret, lay four white eggs 
dappled over with brown. 

' ' Whit -whit -whit -whit -whit -whit -whit -wee -ee^' 
sang the lark again, falling from the blue of the 
heavens upon her speckled treasures. She gathered 
them close beneath her warm little body, and her 
liquid notes died away in a trill of blissful content. 



In Nature s School 

Phil sat very still, and waited until she turned 
her small bright eyes in his direftion. 

" Aren 't you glad to be home again?" she asked. 
" Springtime in England — could any place in the 
world be lovelier than this?" 

Phil looked across the meadow to a wooded hill. 
His roving eyes returned to an arch of beech trees, 
through which was a vision of blue-bells so exqui- 
site in their beauty that it seemed to him no flowers 
of the tropics were half so fair. 

"lam glad to be home," he said, at last, although 
he knew that the Orphanage, with its staring 
windows and prison gates might not be far away. 
It even amused him just then to think of it as 
another jungle, where he would find all sorts of 
animals awaiting him; with good tempers and bad 
tempers, and curious ways of their own that he 
would have to learn if he wanted to live with them 
in peace and quietness. 

"And I shan't be frightened now," he thought, 
wishing that he could see Nature herself again, if 

304 



Home Again 

only for a moment, that he might thank her for 
giving him such a happy year. 

"There are a few hours of it left to you still," 
twittered the lark, as he told her his thoughts. "O ! 
but the world is fair to-day." 

She was thinking, he knew, of the little nestlings 
who would so soon be stirring under her wings, and 
he felt troubled lest harm should come to them. 

"Wouldn't your nest be safer in a tree?" he 
asked; and the lark put her head on one side and 
looked at him quite patronisingly. 

"Nature knows best," she said, "and it was she 
who told us to build it here. When my babies are 
hatched they will be a soft dull brown, spotted with 
buff, and so much the colour of withered grass that 
it will be impossible to distinguish them from it 
even a few feet away. They will be safe — so safe," 
she ended. 

The sky-lark was too happy to have much to 
say, so Phil soon left her and entered the woods. 
The blue-bells were lovelier close at hand than in 
305 u 



In Nature s School 

the distance; a missel-thrush carolled gaily from 
the topmost branch of a tree, and a flash of white 
on a sheltering bank drew Phil's attention to the 
rounded hole through which it disappeared. It was 
the back of a rabbit's tail, he knew, and without a 
second's hesitation he tried to follow the little 
creature; unfortunately, in his hurry he chose 
another hole. He had hardly gone more than two 
or three feet down it when he felt an indignant peck 
on his shoulder. 

'' Now then," said a stern voice, while two very 
black eyes glared at him angrily, "what are you 
doing here? This is my burrow now, for the 
rabbits have left it, and it is 7ny nest on which you 
are trying to trample ! " 

Phil was amazed. An owl's nest in a rabbit war- 
ren? He had never heard of such a thing. 

"I daresay not," said the brown owl, crossly. 
" But with all your wanderings you don't know 
much of bird life. There isn't a decent ruin for 
miles around, and the squirrels have taken posses- 
sor 



Home Again 

sion of all the hollow trees. So what else was left for 



me r^y^^^r"^ 



pray 

Phil's timid suggestion of "hedges" she met 
with scorn, and only melted into amiability when 
he spoke of her cousin, the Snowy Owl. 

" If I thought I could fly so far, I would start off 
for Greenland myself," she said. "The way we are 
persecuted by gamekeepers here is simply terrible. 
The silly creatures say we kill young pheasants, but 
that 's not true. We much prefer mice and rats, and 
smaller birds. If you are after rabbits you had better 
call next door." 

"I wonder if she thinks I want to eat them? " 
smiled Phil to himself, as he tried in vain to catch 
a glimpse of the eggs on which she was sitting. He 
was met at the entrance to the hole "next door" 
by an old grey rabbit of imposing appearance, who 
stared at him in amazed anger, and stamped his 
forefeet. "Thud— thud"; it rang through the gal- 
leries, and frightened squeaks in the distance told 
that this sound was to the inhabitants of the burrow 
307 



In Nature s School 

the signal of "bad news." The rabbit barred the 
passage with his body; the intruder should come 
no further, for who knew what designs he might 
not have on the young rabbits? In a moment, how- 
ever, it occurred to him who Phil must be. 

"I thought you had come to snare us," he said, 
" though I had never seen a boy so small. I shall be 
delighted to show you over. Pray come down." 

With much ceremony he conduced him through 
the long galleries, past numerous "bolt holes" 
through which escape was possible if a ferret or 
weasel should pay a visit to the burrow. Young 
rabbits of every size whisked out of their way as 
they proceeded, and showed how readily they 
could disappear. Approaching somewhat nearer to 
the ground again, Sir Rabbit ushered Phil into a 
hollow cave near the surface. 

" Here we rest from our labours," he remarked, 
grandly. "Our does have separate chambers, that 
their young may be undisturbed." 

A little lady rabbit, with a funny habit of wrink- 

308 



Home Again 

ling up her nose, came forward kindly and asked 
if Phil would like to visit a most interesting young 
family that had just arrived. Having received 
gracious permission from Sir Rabbit, Phil followed 
her to a short "stop," or single burrow, barely a 
yard below the earth's surface, where a gentle doe 
and a litter of young rabbits lay in the nest she 
had made for them with down plucked from 
her own breast. They were blind and hairless — not 
nearly so pretty as their small brothers and sisters 
who scampered about outside, Phil thought; but 
their mother was delighted with them. 

"I shouldn't have a wish in the world," she 
murmured, " if I were not afraid of the badger. 
He has such a sharp nose that in some way he 
scents our nests, and digs them out with his 
powerful forepaws. A dish of young rabbits is his 
favourite food — and mine are so very sweet." 

The look of fear in her mild soft eye was very 
piteous. Phil did his best to cheer her by telling her 
that he had never heard of a badger in those woods. 
309 



In Nature s School 

He was rather thoughtful when he left the 
"stop," and nearly trod on a nest that a pair of 
enterprising robins had built in a tramp's old boot. 
They scolded him vigorously for quite two minutes, 
but relented when they saw his distress, although 
they could not stay to chat. It gave them enough 
to do to fill the five little gaping mouths that were 
always open, and cock-robin hurried off with 
his mate to find more grubs for their brood. 

Under the shelter of an elm tree Phil discovered 
the pretty domed nest of a ChifFchafF. Through 
the opening in the side he could see how exqui- 
sitely the tiny builders had lined it with moss and 
feathers; but there were no white eggs mottled 
with grey, nor hungry fledglings, to reward the 
ChifFchafFs for all their labour. 

"A boy came last night, and stole every single 

egg," explained a squirrel, running down from his 

"drey," or summer nest, which was planted, like 

Feathertail's, on the topmost branch of a tree. 

" And though the Lapwings only came down from 

310 



ii 



Home Again 

the North this season, he robbed them too. They 
have been bewailing their loss all night — you can 
hear them still/' 

It was a mournful cry: 

Pee-weet! Pee-weet! 

They've harried my nest, and gar'd me greet, 

Pee-weet! Pee-weet! 

and Phil felt very sorry for them. The male bird, 
the splendid crest he had put on to charm his lady- 
love entirely forgotten, fluttered sadly round the 
deserted nest, and his mate joined her voice with 
his in a sad ''''Pee-weet,'' 

But it was springtime, and in spite of the Lap- 
wing's trouble there was joy in the very air. The 
Cuckoo, carrying in her beak the egg that she 
was going to put in a Pippit's nest, frisked her 
tail gaily as she crossed Phil's path, and a small 
brown Linnet piped out to him an invitation to 
come and see his nest on the common. He sat on 
Phil's shoulder and twittered to him as they crossed 
the field, telling him how cold the rains had been 
in March and April, and how he had had much 



In Nature s School 

ado with Mrs Linnet to keep up her spirits. 

"But I knew that the sun would shine at last," 
he cried, "and so it has!" 

The gorse was in full bloom, and the linnets had 
built their nest in the centre of a yellow bush that 
was a mass of fragrant gold. On the top of this the 
cock bird perched, whistling a tune to announce 
his arrival; though this was not needed, for the 
little grey lady seated on the nest had watched his 
coming joyfully. 

When Phil had looked at her eggs, and praised 
the way her nest was built, he became aware that 
a pair of long narrow eyes were surveying him 
quietly from a clump of rushes by the brook, 
which was singing merrily as ever. Seeing himself 
observed, the big Fox shook himself, and, with 
his splendid brush held high over his back, trotted 
across to Phil. 

" So your year in Nature's school is nearly over ? " 

he said regretfully. " I was hoping you would have 

come home in time to spend the winter with me. It 

312 



Home Again 

was snug enough in my den, but game was scarce, 
and the hen roosts were too carefully guarded to 
please my fancy. Shall we go for a stroll ? But first 
I will show you my two young cubs; they are 
bright little creatures, and sharp as needles." 

The Fox's den was a deep burrow, or " earth,'* 
which he had scooped for himself in and out of 
the winding roots of a gnarled old oak. The entrance, 
some little distance from the tree itself, was hidden 
by a large stone and a clump of gorse. 

Mr Reynard walked in briskly, and a slim Vixen, 
who had been sleeping with one eye open, as was 
her custom, sprang to her feet and seized the 
smallest of her snub-nosed little cubs by its neck, 
ready to carry it off at a moment's notice. 

"It is quite all right, my dear," said Reynard 
soothingly, "this is a friend. When he has spoken 
to the children, I'm going to take him down to 
the plantation, and show him how I put the 
hounds off my scent." 

"You had much better keep your own counsel," 
313 



In Nature s School 

she snapped. " A secret is never a secret when once 
it is told ; and 1 don't want to be left to fend for 
myself directly the hunting season begins." 

But Reynard knew well that Phil could be 
trusted ; and when he had played for awhile with 
his babies, who were about as unlike young foxes 
as it was possible to be, he bade them an affec- 
tionate farewell and started off with Phil. 

"If you were to take a walk with me in an 
ordinary way," he remarked, "my scent would 
cling to your clothes for months. You've noticed 
it already? It comes from some glands at the root 
of my tail, and wherever I go I leave my trail. 
It is to me a pleasing smell, but sometimes I find 
it most annoying." 

Phil was not listening now. The afternoon sun 
was streaming redly through the pine trees in a 
blaze of light, and as he lifted his hand to shield 
his eyes a voice he knew well whispered in his ear. 
When he took his hand down again the Fox had 
gone, and Nature herself was standing beside him, 

3H 




He started off with Phil 



Home Again 

in a fair green robe the colour of the forest trees. 

"Good-bye, dear little Phil," she cried. "Your 
year in my school has ended. You must go back 
now to the Orphanage, where, all the time that 
you have been with me, your 'other self has been 
learning lessons and playing games. . . . Yet not 
' good-bye ' — for you will be my child always, and 
in the depths of sorrow or the heights of joy you 
will hear my voice if you will but listen. Dear little 
Phil— farewell ! " 

" Farewell." 

The breeze caught up the echo as it died away, 
and a cloud passed over the sun. Very soberly Phil 
turned his footsteps towards the wood again, where 
the rabbits still played hide-and-seek amidst the 
bracken, and the birds were twittering as they 
built their nests. 

Suddenly the white tail of a big bunny hoisted 
a signal of danger, and one and all vanished in a 
moment from the quiet scene. 

" Here 's a BOY ! " cried the Robins excitedly; 



In Nature s School 

and Phil, looking through the glade of blue-bells, 
saw Dick Brownlow half way up a sturdy tree. He 
was in the act of transferring five speckled eggs 
from a dainty nest into his cap. 

"I say, don't take them all!" Phil cried, and 
Dick looked round without showing the least 
astonishment at seeing him there. 

"All right," he answered, helping himself to 
one or two. "I suppose it is hard on the little 
beggars to leave them none. I believe there's a 
lark's nest somewhere near that stream — the cock 
bird made such a flutter when I went to look for 
tadpoles." 

He scrambled down and linked his arm in Phil's 
as if they were bosom friends. As they strolled back 
to the Orphanage together he began to speak of 
things that had happened within the last few weeks, 
and Phil had a dim recolleilion of all he said. But 
how could he have possibly taken part in the foot- 
ball match of which Dick was talking when he 

had been away for a whole year ? He could not 

316 



Home Again 

understand. Dick was congratulating him on having 
made "the best half back for a youngster" that 
the school had known, and Phil's face glowed with 
pride in spite of his perplexity. 

" And you were quite right about our having 
to play together if we wanted to win, though I 
was mad with you at the time for saying so,'' Dick 
added enthusiastically. "Who would have thought 
that such a duffer as you were when you first came 
would be a stunner at games \ You '11 be captain 
of the school before you leave, and a good one, too." 

They had climbed the hill now, and the great 
iron gates of the Orphanage opened to let them 
through. Philip heard them clash behind him 
without a single misgiving, and passed into the 
midst of a group of boys who hailed him eagerly. 

They all seemed much as he had left them, 
though some looked older. Their broad white 
collars were hardly so clean as they had been at 
the beginning of the day, but they looked rather 
nice, Phil thought, over their serge jackets. He 
317 



In Nature s School 

felt for his own ; it was all on one side as usual, 
and he straightened it carefully, remembering how 
particular Mother Beaver had been about her 
young ones' neatness. His feet were cased in boots 
again, but he did not seem to mind, and he 
knocked at the door of the Matron's room with- 
out a doubt that she would be pleased to see him. 

The Matron had altered a great deal — just how 
he could not tell at once. But when she spoke he 
noticed that her voice was softer, and she thanked 
him for the blue-bells he had gathered for her be- 
fore he left the woods as if she were really glad 
to have them. Phil went back to the boys with 
a light heart, ready to meet, if need be, his enemy 
of old, and show him a brave front. 

But Jack had gone. 

"Don't you remember?" said Dick in a puzzled 
voice, for it seemed to him very strange that Phil 
should have forgotten. "They sent him away 
while you were ill. They thought you were dead 
at first, you know, when they found you in the 



Home Again 

woods, and the Matron nursed you herself. You 
talked a lot, and didn't know what you were 
saying. . . . They said you had brain fever, 
and we were jolly well sorry then that we had 
teased you so." 

Phil felt more puzzled than ever. Which was 
the real " Phil," he wondered — the one who had 
stayed in the Orphanage, or that other, who had 
spent such a happy year in Nature's school? He 
was wondering still when the great bell rang for 
tea. A new "orphan" had just arrived — a pale 
little chap with frightened eyes who looked as 
miserable as Phil had done when first he came to 
the Orphanage. 

"May he sit next to me?" Phil asked the 
Matron eagerly. She nodded in silence, an odd 
little smile playing about her lips, and Phil went 
over to the new comer with the protecting air 
that he had caught from Kamba. 

"I'll tell you what to do," he whispered, "and 
we'll be friends. Do you like bull's-eyes? I've got 
319 



In Nature s School 

some here, and to-morrow FU show you how to 
cut whistles/' And the small new boy was greatly 
comforted; for he, like Phil, had found a friend 
in his jungle. 



SEP 9 13^8 




Mf:T°^CONGRE^ 



005 498 2215 



